I’ve mentioned my family’s competitive spirit and our Good
Friday hot cross bun bake off in previous years and have blogged about my tropical
and my no
added sugar hot cross buns. This year I’m staying on the Emerald Isle for
the Easter weekend and not heading home to join the family for all of the food
based celebrations but this won’t stop me baking this seasonal treat and
competing with myself!! In fact this year the thought of eating my body weight
in hot cross buns motivated me through a 10 mile run this morning….I’m
definitely entitled to eat at least 2 now, maybe 3!
So I wanted to try a slightly different recipe and turned to
one of my favourite bakers Dan Lepard. This recipe was originally posted in the
Guardian and you can find the original here.
In this recipe cider is used as one of the main liquids but I
replaced this with apple juice (an oversight when out shopping and missing the
alcohol aisle!!). I then went on to make a couple of further replacements
including using buttermilk instead of cream and spelt flour instead of wholemeal
but the result was delicious and I think if I had been at home I would have
trounced the competition!!
Makes 12
INGREDIENTS
150ml apple juice
7g fast-action yeast
75g spelt flour
150ml buttermilk
2tsp mixed spice
1tsp ground ginger
1tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
50g honey
300g mixed dried fruit
400g white flour
25g cornflour
1 tsp salt
FOR THE CROSS
150g plain flour
50ml sunflower oil
125ml water
SPICE GLAZE
25ml water
25ml sugar
1/2tsp mixed spice
Makes 12
Mix the apple juice (which you want to be at room
temperature), yeast and spelt flour in a bowl and set aside. Then place the
buttermilk, spices, eggs and honey into a saucepan and place over a low heat,
stirring until just warmed. Add the warm buttermilk mixture to the yeast
mixture, add the dried fruit and stir until well combined.
Add the flour, cornflour and salt to a large mixing bowl, make
a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture. Stir together to form quite
a sticky dough and set aside for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes oil a work surface, tip the dough out and
knead for about a minute (Dan reckons you only need to knead this for 10
seconds but I normally stretch it to a minute!). Then return the mixture to the
bowl, cover with a clean cloth and set aside for an hour until the dough has
risen. Then divide the mixture into 12 pieces, shape into balls and put them
onto a baking tray lined with non-stick paper.
Again cover with a cloth and
leave to double in size, which should take between 1 and 2 hours (or the time
it takes me to run 10 miles!!!)
Finally pre-heat the oven to 220°C/425°F/GM7.
Mix the flour, oil and water for the crosses together and
either transfer to a piping bag, or a sandwich bag and then cut the corner of
the bag off and then pipe crosses onto the buns before transferring to the
oven. Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden in colour.
While the buns are in the oven put the water, sugar and
spice into a small saucepan and gently heat until the sugar has melted. When
you remove the bins from the oven baste the buns with the sugar syrup and then
allow to cool a little before consuming 1 or 2…or 3!!
