- Makes 12 hot cross buns – Ready in 24 hours (as long as you have a mature sourdough starter available to use) –
These buns are not very domed, they are quite shallow but they are delicious. I use a 24-hour method, so the dough-making work is done the day before, the uncooked buns are kept in the fridge overnight and in the morning they can be marked with their crosses and baked - ready for breakfast.
Gather together for the buns…
150g active (bubbly – fed 3 hours previously and left in a warm place / oven with light on) sourdough starter.
200ml lukewarm milk.
50g melted butter.
1 medium egg.
70g white sugar (caster or granulated).
450g plain flour (normal white baking ‘plain flour’).
50g wholemeal flour (normal or bread flour either works).
1 tsp ground mixed spice.
150g raisins / sultanas.
80g dried mixed peel.
Zest of an orange (1.5 tsp of zest).
Zest of a lemon (1.5 tsp of zest).
plus...
5 tbsp plain flour to dust the work surface / dough.
Gather together for the crosses on top…
8 tbsp plain flour.
6 tbsp cold water.
Get making…
1. FIRST THING IN THE MORNING OF THE DAY BEFORE you want the hot cross buns to be ready, remove the sourdough starter from the fridge (if that's where you keep your starter, I usually keep mine on the kitchen worktop and only put it in the fridge if I'm not baking with it for 3+ days). As you need 150g to bake the buns with, you'll need to discard less of the starter than usual, ensuring you have a 1/2 cup (120g) of starter left in the Pyrex bowl (I now use a Pyrex - aka toughened glass - bowl to store my sourdough starter, after having three regular glass jars crack, each incident was a near miss each time for my poor starter "Mary" - eek!) To that 120g of starter in the Pyrex bowl, add a 1/2 cup (120g) of lukewarm water - at this stage stir well to loosen the starter - then add a 1/2 cup (60g) of wholemeal flour. Stir well and wipe down the sides with a clean damp cloth, cover the jar with a clean, dry cotton cloth (secured with an elastic band) and put it to keep warm in the oven, WITH JUST THE OVEN LIGHT ON (the heat from the bulb will keep the oven slightly warm) for 3 to 6 HOURS - however long it takes for your particular starter to become very active and bubbly. If it is a COLD DAY then pre-warm your EMPTY oven for 1 minute at 180 C ish - set a timer for 60 seconds or it will get too warm, before turning the heat OFF and just leaving the oven light ON. Set a timer to ring after 3 hours to remind you to check your starter and in the meantime put a note on the oven door so that no one unwittingly turns the heat on and frazzles your starter - eek!
2. Check your sourdough starter half way through the six hours, i.e. after 3 hours (set a timer to remind you to do this). If it looks bubbly and active - great, get on with the recipe steps. If it looks inactive or hungry (i.e. if a layer of watery 'hooch' liquid has formed within the starter or on the top) then stir in the hooch and do another cycle of 'discard all but 1/2 of a cup and feed with 1/2 cup warm water and 1/2 cup wholemeal flour'. If it is a COLD day, repeat the quick oven pre-warm (warm the empty oven for 1 minute at 180 C ish - set a timer for 60 seconds or it will get too warm, before turning the heat OFF and just leaving the oven light ON to continue to keep the sourdough starter cosy).
3. After the three or six hours, so in the EARLY / MID AFTERNOON OF THE DAY BEFORE you want to bake, start to make the enriched hot cross bun dough: In a medium/large, microwave-safe jug, warm the 200ml of milk in the microwave for 20 – 30 seconds on HIGH Then in a small microwave-safe bowl melt the butter in the microwave for 20 – 30 seconds on HIGH. Combine the warmed milk and melted butter in the medium/large jug. Stir in the 70g of white sugar until it dissolves. Set this mixture aside to cool so it doesn’t scramble the egg or kill the yeast.
4. Meanwhile in a large bowl (preferably the bowl of your food mixer, if it has a dough hook attachment) combine the 500g of flours, the 1 tsp of ground mixed spice, the 150g of raisins / sultanas, the 80g of dried mixed peel and the zest of the orange and lemon. Mix well.
5. If the jug of milk/butter/sugar feels cool, then add the medium egg to the jug and whisk well.
6. Pour the jug of liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and add the 150g of active sourdough starter.
7. Knead the dough for 10 minutes (hopefully using a food mixer with dough hook attachment).
8. Cover the dough bowl with a clean damp tea towel (flat across the top of the bowl, not touching the dough) and put it in the oven with just the oven light on (this will keep the rising dough at a constantly warm enough temperature) for 3 to 4 HOURS. Again put a written note on the oven (so it isn't turned on fully by accident) and set a timer to ring to remind you initially when 3 hours have passed. The dough won’t double in size, but it will change in elasticity when it is ready – if you poke it and no indent is left (it springs back immediately) = underproved, if you poke it and the indent stays = overproved. If you poke it and the indent slowly disappears at least halfway= ready to use. So check it at 180 minutes – then every 15 minutes after that until it is ‘ready’ (aka when you poke it the indent slowly disappears at least halfway.)
9. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces – halve it, then halve each of those pieces (giving 4 in total) and then divide each into 3 pieces (giving 12 in total). You can use scales (dust with flour first to reduce sticking) to adjust the weight so each dough lump is exactly equal - if you want to, I always do. Each piece of dough will weigh about 90g.
10. Flour a clean worksurface and gently roll/shape the 12 dough pieces into 12 balls.
11. Find a large, deep sided oven tray (which will fit into your fridge) and base-line the tray with a silicone mat / reusable baking liner / greaseproof paper.
12. Place the 12 balls of dough in the tray, spaced out, not touching (as they will spread and end up touching eventually, so give them some space).
13. Put a wire rack over the top of the tray – so when you drape a wet tea towel over the tray, the tea towel won’t sag and touch the dough.
14. Put the covered tray in a warm place for 2 hours (such as the oven with just the light turned on) - set a timer to remind you. Don’t be dis-heartened if the buns just spread outwards during this second proving, rather than upwards – there will still be gas bubbles trapped inside which will expand during oven baking.
15. After the second prove… Cover the baking tin(s) with PLENTY of foil (Lakeland sell 'extra wide' foil, and Tesco sell some foil that is 450mm / 45cm wide), so there are no gaps. Use two lengths of regular width foil at right angles if you don't have any extra-wide foil, but this does risk a drier end result. Stretch the foil across the top of the tray (not touching the buns) to keep moisture in, to ensure the buns stay soft over night Neither a reusable beeswax wrap, nor a damp tea towel, nor another baking tray placed over the top should be used instead, as they don't seal the moisture in sufficiently, plus the foil increases the heat received by the proving dough from the oven-lightbulb.
16. Then put the tray of uncooked buns in the fridge overnight, still covered with the foil.
17. On BAKING DAY ITSELF take the COLD uncooked dough buns out of the fridge and (still covered with foil) allow the buns to warm up to room temperature for 1 hour. You should see the buns swell a little more, if they don't then your room is probably too cold - move them to a warmer place and leave them for a further 30 minutes.
18. Meanwhile prepare the flour/water paste which you'll use to pipe the crosses onto the buns: whisk the 8 tbsp of plain flour in a bowl with 6 tbsp cold water to make a smooth, quite-thick-yet-pourable paste.
19. Remove the foil from the tray of buns (you can wash, save and re-use the same foil many times).
20. Spoon the white paste into a reusable piping bag with a small, circular nozzle (or use a small plastic food bag and snip a TINY bit off the corner).
21. Pipe a cross on top of each bun by drawing long lines of flour paste up / down the whole tray and then across the whole tray.
22. Place the tray of buns in a COLD OVEN. This cold oven baking method seems unusual, but it works and it saves time and energy as there is no need for wasteful oven-preheating.
23. Set the oven to 220 C (200 C fan) or Gas 7 and bake the buns (uncovered) in their tray for 30 - 35 minutes, on the middle shelf of the oven. (Part of this time will be taken up with the oven heating up, this is fine as it gives the buns time to rise before a crust forms during baking). Don't open the oven door during baking if possible, as it cools the oven down far too much - just check on them at 30 minutes.
24. Once baked, the buns will be dry on the underside and sound hollow when tapped on the base. At this point, carefully place the hot buns on a cooling rack so the bases don't get soggy.
25. Enjoy whilst warm with plenty of butter, or when cool with butter and slices of cheese.
26. Best eaten on the day of making - or you could toast them the next day or use them in this delicious Leftover Hot Cross Bun Pudding - yum!
Adapted from a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe for sourdough hot cross buns.