Mum’s Hot Cross Buns
Our former team member Katrina’s mum, Marianne, has made these hot cross buns every Easter for as long as she can remember.
“The smell of them baking in the oven always brings back great memories and as kids we used to love helping Mum make them.”
“This year I won’t be home for Easter, so I’ve decided there’s only one solution – to bake them myself! (If they don’t work out, Mum’s promised to send some over with the Easter Bunny. Win.)”
Ingredients
2½ cups milk
60g butter, chopped into chunks
4 tsp of dry yeast
pinch of white sugar
8 cups plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp allspice
1 cup currants
½ cup mixed peel
4 eggs
4 tbsp brown sugar
Crosses
4 tbsp self-raising flour
2 tbsp of water
Glaze
¼ tsp gelatine
2 tbsp hot water
1 tbsp sugar
Method:
Preheat oven to 200°C.
Place milk in a saucepan, on medium heat, stirring constantly until it boils. Remove from heat and add butter to milk and stir until melted. Set aside and allow to cool slightly.
In the meantime, in a small bowl dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar, then set aside to start bubbling.
Place flour into bowl, add spices. Make a well in centre of the flour and pour in yeast mixture. Add fruit.
Beat eggs with the brown sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add the cooled but still warm milk mixture. Slowly add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until it makes a firm dough.
Place dough in a large bowl, cover and set aside in a warm spot and allow to rise.
After mixture has doubled in size beat it down and form small balls. To make the crosses, mix flour and water together to make a paste. Pipe paste on buns in form of crosses.
Set buns aside to rise then bake in oven until golden brown (about 20 minutes).
Mix glaze ingredients together in a saucepan over low heat. Simmer for about 1 minute. Remove buns from oven once cooked, brush with glaze and serve warm.
