Baking Bouchon - Recipe 22: Hot Cross Buns

One ha' penny, two ha' penny, hot cross buns!

I'm back!!!  Did you miss me?  I've been baking up a storm the last few days to catch up from being out of town and this was the first tasty treat I tacked.

This nursery rhyme was the extent of my exposure to hot cross buns until today.  In fact, I wasn't even aware that this was a real food.

I'm not going to complain about the dried fruit in these.  Y'all know how I feel about it by now and I didn't hate them but that's probably because they have icing.  I heart icing.

The bun dough is a brioche dough... flour, yeast, eggs, sugar, salt, milk and lots of butter.  I can't tell you how much butter I've bought in the last month.  It's frightening.  I think the cashiers at the grocery store think I have multiple personalities because my cart is full of butter, flour, sugar, eggs and vegetables.

The currants and cranberries get soaked in hot water to plump them up, drained and mixed with vanilla paste.

There are a lot of currants and cranberries in here.  A LOT.  I'm still not saying it...

The fruits get kneaded into the bun dough until it's all incorporated.  Then the dough gets separated into twelve bun balls.  They are supposed to rise for 1 - 1 1/2 hours until they touch each other.  Mine took over 2 hours to rise enough to get fresh with each other but honestly, I always find that dough takes longer to rise in my kitchen.

The buns really did bake up nicely with a great golden crust (due to the egg wash that gets brushed on before baking).

No hot cross bun would be without a cross and what better way to get blessed than by icing.  

This icing is a bit unique in that it's flavored with cinnamon and cardamon.  I was worried the cardamon flavor would be too strong (it was awfully strong when I tasted it), but since you just get a little cross on each bun, it didn't end up being overpowering.

One of CA's coworkers commented that the icing cross was not enough and he wanted the whole thing to be covered in icing.  I guess you'd call that a hot iced bun. (Yes, I'm aware that's cheesy but I warned you I'm a big dork)

Apparently CA knew all along that hot cross buns exist.  He thinks he's pretty smart.

Overall, I liked these despite the abundance of modified fruit.  Fine, I said it.  The bun itself is not very sweet which makes it a good breakfast food and I'm pretty much down with finding more ways to eat icing for breakfast.

Julie