I hope you all had an amazing Easter with your families and loved ones. To me Easter is like small Christmas and I love everything traditional on this day. This year I tried for the first time to make Hot cross buns, and I was very happy with the result, so was my daughter 🙂 The buns are rather easy to make and if you love baking, try them next time you fancy something traditional- I promise you they are much better than the store bought ones.

Ingredients:

For the dough

500 g bread flour

11 g dry yeast

50 g icing sugar

50 g melted butter

200 ml full fat milk

2 eggs plus 1 for glazing

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp mixed spice

100 g dried blueberries

For the cross:

100 g flour

1 tbsp icing sugar

water enough to make a paste

For the sugar syrup

50 g sugar

20 ml water

Preparation:

1. Start with the sugar syrup to have enough time to cool down. Mix the sugar and water and boil until the sugar dissolve. Set aside.
2. Warm the milk and add the yeast and a pinch of sugar. Set aside for 5 minutes until bubbles start showing on the top.
3. Sift the flour and add the blueberries, spices, the yeast mix, two eggs, butter and sugar. Whisk well until it turns into an elastic dough.
4. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, cover with clean foil or cotton towel and leave it to rise for 1 and a half hours.
5. Once the dough double in size, knead for another minute and then cut into 10-12 small buns. Place each one in a baking tray, cover with cloth towel and let it rise for another 30 minutes.
6. Make the cross by mixing the flour, sugar and little water until you get a thick paste. Put the mix into a a piping bag and cut the edge.
7.  Brush the buns with egg yolk, draw a cross on each bun and bake at 170 for 40 minutes.
8. Glaze the buns with sugar syrup immediately after taking them out of the oven.