Hot Cross Buns

One a penny, two a penny hot cross buns! Enjoy these soft brioche buns anytime of the year.

These soft sourdough brioche are made with spices and sultanas but feel free to swap the sultanas to chocolate chips if desired. My family love these year around and they freeze well too.

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

The night before: 25 g active sourdough starter

20 g brown sugar

90 g bakers flour

40 g water

The mixture will be a stiff and dough like. Overnight it should double in size.

Dough:

All of the above starter

115 g milk

Mix starter and milk together then add:

2 eggs

25 g sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

70 g butter, softened

400 g bakers flour

Pinch salt

1 1/2 c sultanas

***to make chocolate buns decrease cinnamon to 1 tsp, reduce mixed spice to 1/2 tsp and add 1T of cocoa and add chocolate chips to the mix.

Method

Knead all ingredients together until dough smooth, around 5-8 minutes or mix in a mix master. Leave on the bench covered to rise for 2 hours. Place in the fridge covered for 20 hours. Shape into around 14 balls and place each on a baking paper lined tin. Cover with a tea towel and rise on the bench until nearly doubled, this may take some time (around 4-8 hours) depending on the temperature. When ready to bake preheat oven to 200C and bake for 25 minutes. Let cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then brush on glaze, recipe as follows:

5 T boiling water

3 T sugar

Combine and brush over buns

After 5 minutes remove buns from tin and place on a rack to cool.

#sourdough #hotcrossbuns #fruitbuns #brioche

If you're feeling really clever shape into bunnies

For the bunny shapes shape into an egg-like shape and use scissors to snip ears at the diagonal. Pop a tail on the back and use a skewer to poke eye holes. 2nd rise in the fridge as per recipe.