Chef John's Hot Cross Buns
Real hot cross buns have the cross baked into them, not piped on afterwards. These are studded with rum-soaked currants. I based my recipe on one I found on Anson Mills' web site.
Gallery
Recipe Summary
Ingredients
Directions
Tips
Chef's Tips:
Any sweet dough will work with this easy technique, especially rich, and fragrant examples, like our Italian Easter Bread dough. Times may vary, but regardless of the dough, simply wait for the dough to double in size, and proceed.
When adding the flour, hold back a little of it until you sure you need it all. You can always add, but can't remove!
If you want to get all your buns the same size, weight your dough in grams before dividing, and then divide by 16. Then, weight each of your dough balls to that exact amount, and boom, your tray of buns will look like the ones you saw on that magazine cover.