This week Family Feed brings you a recipe from our guest writer Leah. It’s a story of the hot cross bun and its traditions, old and new. Leah shares how and why her family choose to enjoy these home-baked treats at Easter and shows you her go-to recipe.

Jump to Recipe

Hot Cross Buns are a deliciously spiced fruity dough that are steeped in as much rich tradition as they are butter. A treat traditionally eaten at Easter they give us a chance to have a bit of variation from the sea of chocolate. This recipe for hot cross buns comes from Cupcake Jemma, founder of Crumbs and Doilies, Soho.

We discovered this recipe last Easter and it brought us joy in both the making and the eating. We decided they tasted so good we should make eating them into a bit more of an event with a teddy bear’s picnic. Now we are into year two of making them, these hot cross buns are established as a new family tradition that we will enjoy each Easter.

Special family bakes

Fresh baked hot cross buns ready for buttering and eating

Like many people, I have a lot of childhood memories and traditions with my own family associated with food. Apparently smell is the strongest memory for most of us, and a kitchen filled with the aroma of certain foods can bring back fond memories or evoke feelings of happiness, joy or excitement. It’s not just the taste and smells of certain dishes that make them significant but the ritual of making them together or the memory of the love someone put into it for you. For me, the hot cross bun has been a lovely example of tradition to add to the tapestry of our family life.

Food memories and traditions are obviously not confined to the special occasion, seasonal type of creations. But that is the category that the hot cross buns fall into, a special once-a-year kind of bake. They are made from an enriched dough and so need more time and stages than I would normally give to run-of-the-mill baking. It’s really baked into the whole history and traditions of the hot cross bun (pardon the pun) that it does require a bit of love and time. I hope I can convince you that it is time well spent!

Family baking for us mainly involves my three-year-old son who loves to help me. Especially if it involves using a mixer, blender or some other cooking equipment. He also shares my passion for licking the bowl. We aren’t at the stage where his concentration and ability will allow for fiddly baking, and in that sense, this hot cross bun recipe was a good one. Lots of adding and pouring in ingredients and chances to watch the mixer at work. If you don’t have a food mixer you can still make these buns by hand kneading. Jamie Oliver has a handy video of his gadget-free hot cross buns. But the fun (and traditions) of a hot cross bun is not just the baking…

One a penny two a penny

How many cakes or bakes can boast having a song or several dedicated to them? I love a good nursery rhyme (ah parenthood with small children) but I have to confess I didn’t know the full hot cross bun one until researching for this post. For anyone who’s interested it goes:

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!

However, the folklore/rhyme that really delighted me to find was an old Irish one. It says that if you shared a hot cross bun with a friend you would have a strong friendship and bond for the coming year. The line from the rhyme is ‘half for you and half for me, between us two, good luck shall be.’ We embraced this sweet idea and shared our batch with some friends, because what friendship doesn’t benefit from a bit of sugary love? Drawing more people we love into our new tradition was a lovely aspect to it, especially in 2020-21 when we haven’t been able to share as much life with friends as we might have liked.

A bit more on the old traditions

The number of other beliefs and superstitions attached to the hot cross bun throughout history is amazing. To give just some examples, it was once considered so special and blessed that Elizabeth I decreed that they could only be sold on Good Friday and Christmas. At other times it was believed that a hot cross bun made on Good Friday would not go bad for the whole year and in fact took on some holy/medicinal properties. One bun would be hung from the ceiling in the kitchen and a bit fed to anyone who got sick that year, and others believed it would make all baked goods cooked in that kitchen delicious!

So there we have it, a bun so special that over the course of history it has warranted a royal decree, inspired several rhymes, been a year-long fixture in the kitchen, believed to have medicinal powers, and been a sign of lasting friendship. I hope if you have a chance to give these hot cross buns a try; you will find as much pleasure in connecting to the old traditions and/or creating new ones as we did.

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe

Ingredients

For the dough

500 g strong white bread flour
10 g instant dry yeast/quick yeast
2 tsp salt
50 g caster sugar
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 large egg
50 g soft unsalted butter
350 ml water at room temp
100 g mixed peel
100 g currants
100 g sultanas
Extra flour for kneading

For the cross

75 g plain flour
25 g vegetable oil
75 ml water, room temp
4 Tbsp Apricot Jam to glaze

Instructions

Add the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, mixed spice and cinnamon to the bowl of the mixer and stir together.
Add the egg, butter and water to the bowl and turn the mixer on to the lowest speed till the dough comes together.
Once the dough has come together you can turn the mixer up to a medium speed and mix for 10-15 minutes. Cupcake Jemma advises that within that you turn the mixer off every couple of minutes or so to rest for 30 seconds, which apparently relaxes the gluten. You will know you have mixed the dough enough when it starts to come away from the sides of the bowl as it is mixing. See photos for what that looks like.
Add in the dried fruit and mixed peel and turn the mixer onto a medium low to combine for a few minutes. It will take a minute to get the fruit evenly worked through but be patient, it will happen.
Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for an hour till it has doubled in size.
Your dough should be doubled in size now.
Knock the dough back. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold it in on itself for about 30 seconds to knock the air out of it.
Put the dough back into the bowl and leave to proof for another 30 mins in the warm place.

Assembling the buns (have your baking tray lined with baking paper at the ready)

Once the dough has proved tip it out onto a floured surface again. Now is the time to divide it into the 12 buns. You can do this by eye or if you want to I followed Cupcake Jemma’s tip to weight out 100g per bun (note this did leave a little excess dough). I used a dough cutter to cut off the lumps of dough but a knife or even your hands will also work.
With each lump of dough you want to form a ball by tucking the dough in on itself underneath and then gently rolling it on table. So the edges of the dough keep being nudged under with your finger tips and then cupping your hand over gently roll. If any fruit is fully exposed on the surface pick it out as it will burn in the oven otherwise.
As you make each bun arrange them on the lined baking tray with a cm or two between each one. Then very loosely cover with clingfilm and rest for 20 mins a warm place to rise. After the rise the dough will spring back when lightly touched and have risen so buns are touching or almost touching (see picture).
While the buns are rising preheat your oven to 190 degrees C (170 fan) and make the paste for the cross decoration. To do this mix together the flour, oil and water in a small bowl until smooth. Then put this is a piping bag ready to decorate.
When the buns have risen its time to decorate. For the cross, cut off the tip of the piping bag to give approximately half a cm diameter hole at the end (or use a small circular nozzle if you prefer). As the buns cook the cross lines will expand so however wide you want your cross to be pipe a line a little thinner than that. If you look at the before and after photos of my hot cross buns you will get an idea.
The technique I used for piping the crosses was to pipe the horizontal line across the whole row of buns in one go and then same in the other direction for the vertical line. .
Bake the hot cross buns for 20-25 mins until golden brown
While the buns are baking warm the apricot jam in a small pan until runny. Then when the buns are out of the oven and still warm brush them with the jam to give a nice shiny glaze.
Enjoy warm with lashings of butter.