Sunday, April 5, 2015

Hot Cross Buns

 Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns!  Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns!

(From an old English nursery rhyme)

 American version ingredients

 Hot cross buns are those little British sweet fruit buns that pop-up at Easter time.  Traditionally they are decorated with a cross on top and eaten on Good Friday.  I've wanted to make them for the longest time. Even though I love to bake, I don't bake with yeast and that's why I've shied away from making them.

  This year though after watching Delia Smith's Cookery School Hot Cross Buns video, I decided to give them a go.  The trickiest part (for me) was determining which yeast to use for Delia's recipe here in America.   

Here are my American conversions for the recipe:
Strong flour =  Gold Medal all purpose flour
Mixed spice =  Pumpkin pie spice
Caster sugar = C & H Baker's Sugar
Easy Bake Yeast = Fleischmann's Rapid Rise Instant Yeast

 Look mom, no seams!

 To learn more about hot cross buns, I also watched a Martha Stewart video.  In Martha's video I learned an easy way to roll and shape the buns thanks to chef John Barricelli who is a third generation baker.  Check out his video with Martha for some great tips.  

 The Cross

In my American home kitchen, I baked my buns in a 375F oven for 15 minutes and ended up with excellent results.  I opted to forgo the traditional method of baking the cross on the buns and decorated my baked buns with an icing cross instead.  Here's my recipe:

Icing recipe
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp lemon juice

Let stand 5 minutes to thicken and then ice your buns.

Happy Easter!

Traditionally hot cross buns are served with a spread of butter.  We loved them.  These will now be an Easter holiday tradition for us!

2 comments:

Teresa Parkins said...

One of my favourite treats at Easter, Lisette and am glad yours turned out so well and will now become part of your traditions at this wonderful time of year.

Unknown said...

Thank you Teresa! Delia Smith makes those British recipes easy for me to tackle! :)