I’m a little torn when it comes to Easter when it comes to my favourite thing. I mean, anyone who knows me knows how much I love chocolate, and I am obsessed with Easter chocolate. I can’t tell you how many Malteaster bunnies I’ve consumed in the weeks leading up to Easter (if you’ve never tried these you are missing out!) and I’m looking forward to consuming far too much chocolate come Easter Sunday. But my other love comes from delicious hot cross buns. I love the flavour of them, especially when you put them in the oven and cover them in butter. It’s just about the best thing ever, and it makes me sad that I can’t eat these all year round. So I find each year I try to eat as many hot cross buns as I can, which generally results in me eating far too much butter and bread for my own good. But hey, it’s Easter right? How many other occasions can you find delicious hot cross buns everywhere you look? The struggle is real, especially now that I live in Melbourne and all delicious food is far more accessible.
Because of my love for hot cross buns, I’ve always wanted to try making them, but I’ve never quite gotten there. I think the main reason for this is that I have never cooked with yeast before, and it seemed like a scary process. In my head I felt that so many things could go wrong, I mean you have to feed the yeast, allow it to grow, rest the dough, knead the dough, rest it again. Not only did it seem like a long process, but I felt I was likely to get impatient and ruin the whole thing!
But this year I decided it was finally time to try making them, I mean it was a rainy Saturday and I now have my own kitchen to experiment in, it was really now or never! So I marched down to Woolworths and bought my ingredients, and set aside my day to baking hot cross buns.
I decided as always, to put my own spin on them, which was partly creativity but mostly that I couldn’t decide whether I wanted them to be traditional or chocolate flavoured. In the end like the little girl in the taco ad, I decided why not have both? I love hot cross buns filled with sultanas, but I also love ones with chocolate. So I decided it was about time the two came together in glorious hot cross bun heaven. And heaven it was.
I was surprised by how easy it was to cook with yeast. Sure you really have to knead the dough, and make sure you give it enough time to rise. You need to put a lot of time, effort and love into the cook, but it was worth every second. In the end I couldn’t have asked for a better result, and now I feel like I’ve opened up a whole new world of cooking dough. Now I can try all those recipes I’ve been avoiding that use yeast because I haven’t been comfortable enough. I feel like I’ve unlocked a whole new world of cooking, and will probably be eating a lot more bread in the weeks to come!
If you are after a recipe for delicious, flavoursome, gooey hot cross buns, look no further. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but these were some of the best hot cross buns I’ve ever eaten. And that is a big call, given I have eaten a lot in my time. I was glad that I had told myself I’d go for an afternoon walk because I would have probably eaten the whole tray fresh out of the oven if I had stayed at home. I can’t explain how good these were fresh out of the oven with a bit of butter, you will just have to try it for yourself because it was out of this world!
Ingredients
- 1 packet of dry yeast or 1 tablespoon
- ½ cup of caster sugar
- 1 and ½ cups of lukewarm milk
- 4 and ¼ cups of plain flour, sifted
- 2 teaspoons of mixed spice
- 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
- 50 grams of unsalted butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 1 and ½ cups of sultanas
- 200 grams of cooking chocolate (I used dark chocolate melts)
- ½ cup of plain flour
- 1/3 cup of water
- ½ cup of caster sugar
- ½ cup of water
Instructions
- In a large bowl, place the yeast, 2 teaspoons of the sugar and the milk in a large bowl and set aside for 5 minutes. The mixture will start to foam when the yeast is active.
- Once the yeast mixture is ready, combine the flour, mixed spice, cinnamon, butter, egg, remaining sugar, sultanas and chocolate with the yeast mixture, stirring until a sticky dough forms.
- Lightly flour your benchtop and empty the dough onto the surface. Knead the dough for about 8 minutes or until elastic. The sultanas may pop out but just knead them back in.
- Lightly oil a medium sized mixing bowl and place the dough in the bowl. Cover with a clean, damp cloth and set aside for 1 hour in a warm place. The dough should double in size.
- Once the dough is ready, line a square cake tin with baking paper. Separate the dough into 12 even balls, rolling using your hands and placing side by side in the tin. You don’t need much room between them as they will easily pull apart after cooking. Cover with the damp cloth and let rest in a warm place for another 30 minutes, or until risen.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. To make the crosses, mix the plain flour and water in a small bowl until combined. Get a piping bag and place the mixture in this, the bottom of the bag and connecting to a small nozzle.
- Once the buns are ready, pipe crosses on to the top of the hot cross buns. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and springy to touch.
- Right before the hot cross buns are ready, place the sugar and water in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and simmering.
- Take the hot cross buns out of the oven. Using a pastry brush, cover the top of each bun with the sugar glaze immediately.
- Serve right out of the oven with a generous serve of butter, or for days after by reheating for a couple of minutes in the oven.
These hot cross buns rose so much and were such a good size. The texture was so nice and soft, and the gooeyness of the chocolate and sultanas made the hot cross buns so delicious. I loved the flavour of the spices through the hot cross buns as well, the recipe had the perfect amount of cinnamon and mixed spice.
If you do one thing, please tell me you will try one of these straight out of the oven. I can’t explain how amazing the melting chocolate and freshly baked bread taste was, it made me want to eat the whole batch! I probably would have too if I hadn’t have gone out, and luckily I had to go to Perth this week for work, otherwise the temptation of having those buns sitting there would have been too strong!
These are truly the perfect Easter treat, even though they aren’t traditional! I think more hot cross buns should be chocolate and sultana, the combination really was next level. I can’t wait for next Easter so I can make more! Although now that I know that I can use yeast, I feel like it might be a little too easy for me to make hot cross buns all year round!
Until next time, happy eating!
Ella xx
