Hot Cross Bun Recipe | Lifestyle

This wasn't originally what I had planned to be posted today but this Hot Cross Bun recipe just fits so perfect with Easter I thought I'd to it today. 

These Hot Cross Buns may not be the prettiest - I kinda lost the crosses because they were too runny, however it was a first attempt so I don't think it went too bad. I got the recipe from BBC Good Food  where I get quite a lot of my recipes from but I didn't realise how hard this one would be. Next time I'd definitely have a look around at some different recipes because this one took forever and I wasn't too happy with them, but the family were which I guess is the main thing. 

Let's start with the ingredients for the buns:- 

• 300ml full-fat milk, plus 2 tbsp more - I used skimmed milk I don't know why you'd need to use full fat
• 50g butter
• 500g strong bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 7g sachet fast-action or easy-blend yeast
• 1 egg, beaten
• 75g sultanas
• 50g mixed peel
• zest 1 orange
• 1 apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped - I grated it instead
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 75g of glace cherries - I decided to add these

For the cross

• 75g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

Method

The BBC Good Food website suggest you've gotta boil the milk and them add the butter but then you have to wait for the milk to cool to hand temperature which bloody takes forever. I think next time I'd melt the butter and add it to the milk which would heat it up a bit but not a massive amount. 

Add the caster sugar, yeast, flour and salt in a bowl together, once you have your "hand temperature" buttery milk add it little by little to the dry ingredients. Keep all the fruit in a separate bowl for later.  I say add the milk little by little because I added the whole lot in the bowl and it was an utter nightmare because there was too much liquid, I couldn't knead the dough properly. Once you have kneaded it put it back in the bowl and cover over with some oiled clingfilm in a warm place for an hour.

Once it has risen, add all the fruit into the bowl and knead again to make sure the fruit is evenly distributed. I added glace cherries because I saw an M&S advert which had them in their hot cross buns so I just had to add them too. I must admit they make a lovely addition. Once all mixed put it back in the bowl and leave to prove for another hour

Then you can separate the dough into 15 little buns - leave to prove for another (!) hour, then add the crosses on them. I really would advise adding the water to the flour in very small amounts because if it's too runny the crosses just disappear, as you can see. Then pop them in the oven at gas mark 7 for 15-20 mins and you're done. You can add the apricot jam but I didn't actually think it added anything extra and made it incredibly messy to eat. 

The end result 

Have you got any other hot cross bun recipes that are slightly easier?