Submitted by foolishpoolish on April 3, 2009 - 10:30am
A copy of the recipe from my wordpress blog.
Makes: a baker's dozen (13!) hot cross buns (~100g each)
This recipe requires 200g of 60% hydration starter. If you don't have enough storage starter then you can make up the required amount the night before you intend to make bread by mixing up the following:
- 115g flour
- 62g water
- 35g mature storage starter (assuming 100% hydration)
Mix and leave to mature overnight.
for the final dough:
- 250g strong bread flour
- 90g whole wheat flour
- 60g rye flour
- 250g mixed dried fruit (for example 100g currants, 100g sultanas/golden raisins, 50g candied peel)
- 200g starter (60% hydration)
- 90g sugar
- 90g butter (room temperature)
- 150g water
- 1 large egg + 1 yolk (~80g)
- 30g golden syrup (you can use glucose or corn syrup instead)
- 30g oil
- 2 tbsp milk powder
- 9g salt
- zest of one orange and one lemon or lime
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- a few tablespoons of milk
for the crosses:
- 50g flour
- 13g icing sugar
- 25g butter
- ~40g water
for the glaze:
- 50g sugar
- 50g water
- 25g honey
- several star anise
- 1 tbsp rose water
- Mix the flour, starter, water, egg, syrup, oil, milk powder and salt into an even dough.
- Let the dough rest for 20 to 30 minutes**
- Gradually knead in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time until you have a fully developed dough.
- Bulk ferment the dough in a warm place (75-80F) for 7 to 10 hours until the dough is roughly 1.5 times its original volume. Apply several folds at even intervals during this time.
- While the dough is rising, mix the spices into the butter until they have been distributed evenly.
- After bulk ferment, knead the butter into the dough, a tablespoon at a time.
- Rest the dough for 20 minutes.
- Gently knead or fold the dried fruit and citrus zest into the dough.
- Allow the dough to rest for another 10 minutes before dividing and shaping into 12 buns (small boule shape).
- Place the buns in a cake tin or baking tray and brush with milk.
- Proof the buns for 8 to 12 hours until they have doubled in volume.
- Prepare the glaze by heating the sugar, water and star anise in a pan until boiling, and simmer for several minutes. Allow the glaze to cool before stirring in the honey and rose water.
- For the crosses, rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar. Stir in enough water to make a thick, smooth paste (suitable for piping).
- After proofing, gently brush the buns once more with milk.
- Using a piping bag (or plastic bag with a hole in one corner), pipe crosses with the flour paste on to the buns.
- Bake the buns at 400F for 15 minutes or until they are nicely browned on top.
- Glaze the buns immediately after baking and once more while they are still warm.
Enjoy!
Please let me know how it went, if you make this recipe.
FP
** CORRECTION ADDED 9/4/2009 -FP
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Looking great. I like the
Looking great. I like the idea of using some whole wheat flour (my hot cross bun recipe has all white flour).
Mind if I put these up on the homepage for the next few weeks?
Very attractive looking
Looks like a very nice recipe! --Pamela
Thanks!
Thanks Floyd, Pamela.
Mind? of course not! I'd consider it an honour to have this up on the homepage. I had to correct a few mistakes just a moment ago - but I think it's all good now.
Cheers,
FP
Absolutely gorgeous
Those look like the genuine article with the baked-in crosses too. I especially like that you made them as a sourdough recipe. The crusts are a beautiful color. How do you like the taste and texture? Do you find the sourdough makes them very airy and digestible compared to a yeasted version?
I know Hamelman has a recipe for these in Bread but I haven't taken a look at that yet. Great photos...thanks for sharing this recipe! md
Thanks - texture was great
Thanks - the taste and texture were spot on for my tastes. Not really any strong hint of sour. The crumb was indeed quite light although I'm used to supermarket versions which are akin to wonderbread with currants...these buns were somewhat richer.
I've not tried the Hamelman recipe yet but it's supposed to be really good. I think there's an even higher proportion of whole wheat in his recipe. Definitely worth checking out.
Cheers,
FP
Beautiful!
Gorgeous buns, FP :-)
dw
These look great. This recipe
These look great. This recipe is on my to do list when i need to de-stress.
Biga
If you don't have storage starter on hand, you can try the biga method.
Biga (200g; 60% in Baker's percentage):
Mix all together and cover. No need for kneeding. Let it stay for 8-14 hours. Up to 18 hours in the fridge.
Cool.
Thanks Debra, Leliwiggins
WildeNY, thanks for the conversion for using a biga. It should work a treat, I'm sure.
Cheers,
FP
good buns but I have a question...
Your posted picture looked so enticing that I made these buns and baked them last night. They rose in the oven and turned out well and we enjoyed some of them for breakfast, but I do have a question or two.
Your photos make it look like the recipe creates a nice smooth dough, but following the recipe exactly created a shaggy mess for me. I don't have a stand mixer and in trying to knead the dough by hand I didn't end up with a dough ball, but with a sticky goo coating the counter and my hands. I even tried the slap and fold method, thinking that might be the best kneading method for such sticky dough, but really it was just a disaster that didn't improve with handling. Your recipe doesn't mention adding additional flour, but I must have ended up adding at least a cup additional flour at the butter-and-raisin-addition stage just so that I could handle the dough and get everything to blend. My buns still didn't look like yours do sitting all smooth and tidy in their baking pan. Mine were still kind of wet and gloppy looking.
Please advise! Despite this difficulty I ended up with buns that everyone enjoyed. They didn't have an open crumb but were quite dense -- though tasty nevertheless. I would like to try again, but would like a bit more guidance in the preparation.
Thanks!
Mixing the HXB dough
Hi alicat,
I'm glad the buns turned out tasty, if a little dense in the end but I totally understand the problems youmay have encountered when mixing the dough. Like yourself, I mix by hand as I have no stand mixer to do the hard work.
The initial stage should involve minimal kneading:- mix up the starter, egg, syrup, oil, water, salt and flour until everything is evenly hydrated and let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes before mixing to a smooth dough. I think I forgot to add this initial 'autolyse' stage - which I shall correct post haste. Sorry about that!
Once you start adding sugar, you should realllly slow things down. I add the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. I then pull/stretch from the outside of the dough and folding back over into the centre, while rotating the mixing bowl. I do this about 10 times before resting for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, followed by another 10 stretch/folds and another rest before adding the next tablespoon of sugar.
By the end of this the dough will be sticky, but should still maintain some elasticity and extensibility. During the initial fermentation, I highly recommend folding the dough a few times at regular intervals to add strength and elasticity to the dough.
When adding the butter, I recommend slap and fold, again with 30 second rests between each incorporation. After all the butter is incorporated rest again for 20 minutes before adding the fruit.
Hope that helps in the future. I'm sorry you had difficulties with the mixing.
Cheers
FP
Thanks for the idea!
Thank you so much for giving me the idea to make hot cross buns. I had never made them before so I took you idea and ran with it. I didn't have a lot of time so I had to do a short cut. I used my WW sourdough starter and modified Floyd's recipe. I made the cross using the exact ingredients provided by your post. They didn't look as great as yours but the crumb was amazingly soft. My husband and son loved them.
Awesome
Those buns look great! Good job with the piping - you have a steadier hand than I! :) and that crumb looks so soft. I'm hungry now...
FP
Beautiful!
I can almost smell this from the image! From start to finish, approximately how long does this entire process take?
Time it takes.
If you are making the sourdough version of the hot cross buns and have enough storage starter (200g) then start to finish should be about 24 hours. Most of that time is fermentation/proofing. Actual mixing time is 30 minutes or so depending on whether you use a stand mixer or mix by hand.
If you need to elaborate or convert your storage starter then you'll need to add another 6 to 8 hours while that ferments (you can shorten that time by using a higher percentage storage starter to flour when mixing the levain).
You might be able to reduce times considerably by adding 1/2 tsp or so of yeast in the final dough but since I didn't do it that way, I'm afraid can't say for sure.
FP
Yummy!!!! Pic of my version:
Yummy!!!!
Pic of my version:
More info in my blog here: http://www.tangledweb.me.uk/wordpress/?p=187
My dough was hand mixed. It was very sticky once the sugar was added but most of the kneading was priot to that. Once the fruit was added it was a sticky mess, and hard to shape, but I dusted it with flour and it wasn't so bad.
Wow!
Wow those are fantastic. Good job!
FP
phenomenal results
I didn't even have time to take a picture after the second glazing before they got gobbled up. I go big puffy buns with great crumb, good spiciness, and barely sweet so that the glaze is a perfect match. Maybe I'd cut back a little on the lemon zest next time, could be that Italian lemons have zestier zest?
I'd never have thought of including rye in a sweet dough -- is that for the flavor or for some quality it lends the dough?
Thanks for a great recipe!
Rye in the dough
Hi lagrassa,
I'm so glad you had good results with the recipe. I'd definitely agree that the lemon zest is subject to taste.
The rye is there mostly for flavour yes - I think the earthiness and spiciness complements the spice in the buns. I'd also like to think that the addition of whole grain (esp. rye) in the dough is conducive to bacteria/yeast activity. With an enriched dough like this, the yeast needs all the help it can get. Whole grains also absorb more water, so you should get a moister (is 'moister' a word?!) bun.
Cheers,
FP
Great formula
Just wanted to thank you for the formula. I made a couple of small changes (both intentional and unintentional) and they came out great. I used raisons, dried cranberries and dried mango, since that's all I had on hand. I also mistakenly added the butter in the initial mix, but it still came out great. Everyone loved them and I'll keep making these. I've already had requests for more.
Hot X Buns
I also made them at the weekend and came out the best ever, will keep the recipe for next year, not something you can bash off in a hurry but exelent, many thanks for sharing it.
Cheers
Dave W
good to hear
Thetwood, I actually ended up using leftover dried fruit from christmas (hence the odd glace cherry). Cranberries and mango sounds great.
So glad you and Dave W both had success with it.
Cheers,
FP