Small Batch Hot Cross Buns
This recipe for homemade hot cross buns makes a nice small batch of 4 buns. They're fluffy and soft with mixed spice, raisins and citrus peel. Serve them split and toasted with jam and butter.
Servings 4 buns
Ingredients
Soaked fruit
- 100 g (2/3 cup loosely packed) mixed dried fruit (or 70g raisins + 30g chopped candied citrus peel)
- 1 Earl Grey or English Breakfast tea bag optional
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- ~150 ml boiling water
Dough:
- 180 g (1 ½ cups) strong white bread flour
- 1 tbsp granulated or caster sugar
- 1/4 tsp fine table salt
- 1/2 tsp instant dried yeast
- 1/2 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tbsp vegetable/sunflower/rapeseed/light olive oil
- 1 medium egg (55g without shell)
Cross:
- 40 g plain flour
- ~40 g water
- apricot jam, maple syrup, golden syrup (for glazing) optional
Instructions
Soak the fruit:
- Place the mixed dried fruit, tea bag (if using) and mixed spice into a small bowl. Cover with the boiling water and set aside for 5-10 minutes until the water has cooled to lukewarm.
- Remove the tea bag and discard. Strain the fruit and reserve, catching the soaking liquid in a bowl below. Reserve 60g of the soaking liquid.
Make the dough:
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt, briefly stirring together to combine. Mix in the dried yeast and mixed spice.
- Pour the 60g of the soaking liquid you reserved earlier into a jug. Crack the egg into the jug and mix until smooth. Pour the liquid into the bowl of flour along with the oil.
- Stir to get a rough dough then tip out onto a work surface and knead, dusting lightly with flour as needed, until you have a smooth dough which passes the windowpane test*.
- Place the dough back into the bowl you mixed it in, drizzle with some more oil and turn to coat. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes so it can relax.
Incorporate fruit into dough:
- Tip the rested dough out onto a work surface and press out with your fingertips into a large rectangle.
- Sprinkle the drained fruit evenly over the surface of the dough. Fold the dough into thirds like a business letter. Rotate 90 degrees and fold into thirds again.
- Place the dough back into the bowl, cover and let rise for 1-2 hours, until doubled in volume.
Shape and bake:
- Punch down the dough and tip out onto a clean work surface. Cut into quarters and roll each quarter into a tight ball.
- Place the balls onto a lined/greased baking tray (or in a cake tin) and cover. Leave to rise somewhere warm for 30-40 minutes, until puffy and, when gently poked, an indentation is left in the dough.
- About 15 minutes before your buns are fully risen, preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F fan (200°C/400°F non-fan).
- Mix the cross ingredients together by gradually stirring the water into the flour (you might not need all the water) to get a spoonable mixture (see video for the texture) and transfer to a piping bag (or small sandwich bag) and snip off the very tip (it's better to have a smaller hole than a larger one, IMO). Pipe the mixture in a cross shape on top of each bun.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and puffy.
- Glaze the warm buns with warmed apricot jam/maple syrup/golden syrup if you wish! Eat the buns warm or let them cool then halve & toast. Serve with butter and jam.
Video
Notes
*The Windowpane Test: when kneading bread doughs, the easiest way to tell that the gluten has been sufficiently developed is the windowpane test. Take a small piece of dough and gently stretch it out between your fingers until it's thin enough to see the silhouette of your fingers through when held up to the light. If it breaks before it reaches this point, it means you have some more kneading to do! (See the video in the recipe card for a reference to the windowpane test).
Extra flavour in the dough: you can add the finely grated zest of 1/2 orange and 1/2 lemon to the dough. Just mix the grated zest in along with the flour.
More dried fruit: these buns aren't very heavy on the dried fruit. You can boost the fruit content by using 150g of dried fruit (110g raisins + 40g chopped candied citrus peel) instead.
Slightly smaller buns: these buns are made with just over 100g of dough each - this makes them bigger than a standard supermarket HCB! If you'd rather have slightly smaller buns, split the dough into 6.