Skip to main content

Cherry Hot Cross Buns

Hot. Cross. Buns. A timeless classic, easy to make and when toasted and coated in butter are a perfect afternoon tea snack. Traditionally these are eaten on Good Friday, and in the run up to Easter they are in every superstore. However home baked buns are far superior, and have the plus factor that you can throw in whatever you like. Normally they are flavoured with chopped fruit and peel - I love cherries so I have added in some chopped glacé cherries as an extra dimension.

Ingredients:



Method:

Bring the milk to a boil, then allow to cool. Meanwhile, combine the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, butter and egg in a mixing bowl and combine well.

When the milk is warm to touch gradually add the to the dry mix whilst stirring - I use my KitchenAid for this, as it makes the mixing process easier.  When all the milk is incorporated add the spices and fruit. At this point the mixture will be quite wet.







Knead for around 5 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic like. Place in a oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise for around an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Knock the air out of the dough and separate into 16 pieces. Roll into balls and place on a lined baking tray. Leave to prove for another 30 mins in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 180C fan assisted.



Mix together 5 tbsp of plain flour and 4 tbsp of water, so you have a thick paste. Use this to create the crosses on top of the buns.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden brown. Whilst still hot brush over with either apricot jam on honey for a shiny glaze. 




Then sit back and enjoy as ever with a good cup of tea.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pasteils de nata - custard tarts

Pastry week on the Great British Bake Off saw Paull Hollywood set custard tarts as the technical challenge and I thought I would give them a go, seeing as I have never attempted them before! I own Paul's cookbook which has the recipe in, and it can also be found on the GBBO website. These two recipes vary slightly - in the book Paul doesn't make the rough puff pastry but uses shop bought (which I would normally do.) This being a Bake Off challenge though I decided to use the recipe they followed in the tent. The result - delicious buttery pastry filled with golden creamy custard. I ate 3 in one sitting! The tarts are quite fiddly and leaving the pastry to cool between rolling is essential to get the decent lamination and signature swirl on the bottom, so you will need to set aside a good couple of hours in total. As a side note, I found that I had a lot of left over custard - either I didn't make my tarts big enough or the recipe is rather generous with the por...

After Eight minis by Fantasy Cakes

Father Christmas clearly knows me well, as under the tree I had a new cake recipe book waiting; Fantasy Cakes by Angela Romeo and it is such a treat for the eyes to browse, and stomach for the wonderful cakes you could bake. It is a very clever book in that it has the standard cake recipes at the start which are used throughout the book. These so far have been so simple to throw together, which is very handy as I can leave the baby playing for 10 minutes to whip the cake up. You can order the book here , and I highly recommend it if you want to try some beautiful centre pieces or show stoppers. The first cake I tried is the After Eight minis, great as all the family were round to gobble up the end result.  This After Eight recipe took a while to assemble and create the individual elements however they can all be done in advance and individually rather than sitting down for a good couple of hours stretch. I had to alter the recipe slightly as I ran out of self raising fl...

Malteser Christmas Pudding Cake

Hello! Doing the rounds at this festive time is a Malteser Cake in the style of a Christmas pudding, and one of my friends has challenged me to make this, so being one to thrive at the thought of a challenge I gave it a go! I basically have made a chocolate cake in a Christmas pudding bowl, sliced and iced then covered in Maltesers. Pretty simple but looks fairly impressive.  This recipe will make you the Christmas pudding and some spare batter, so you can pop in 12 cupcakes as well! Ingredients: 350g plain flour 350g caster sugar 50g cocoa powder 1 tsp bicarb of soda 150g dark chocolate chips 435ml vegetable oil 1 cup of buttermilk (sour cream can be used as an alternative) 3 large eggs For the icing: 350g icing powder 250g softened butter Cocoa powder to flavour Two large share packs of Maltesers Melted white chocolate A couple of cherries Method: Preheat your oven to 170C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin and grease a Christmas Pudding shaped bowl. I ...