We’re feeling extremely lucky that our head chef, Tristan, has shared his special hot cross bun recipe with us! These candied orange peel hot cross buns are a must try, so give them a go for the Easter weekend. If you’ve had these in our cafe, then we don’t need to tell you how good they are!

Ingredients

Makes 10 hot cross buns

• 600g of bread flour
• 90g sugar
• 5 tsp of mixed spice
• 2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1 orange, zested
• 36g of fresh yeast
• 48g butter, 360 ml of whole milk,
• 2 eggs
• 60g of candied mixed peel
• 180g of sultanas
• 75g of plain flour and 100ml of water for the cross.
• 100ml of freshly squeezed orange juice, 50ml water and 150g cane sugar for the glaze

Method

1. Mix together the bread flour, 90g of cane sugar, your mixed spice, cinnamon and orange zest in a mixing bowl. Add 2 eggs to the bowl and mix for 2 minutes.

2. Melt the butter to room temperature and heat the milk to room temperature separately. Activate the fresh yeast in the warm milk.

3. Add your butter to the dry mix and mix them until they’re incorporated (2-3 minutes).

4. Gradually add the milk to the bowl while mixing (this process will take around 30 mins, adding milk to the bowl 6 or 7 times until it is all mixed in, this will stop the mixture from clumping and give you a smooth dough mixture).

5. Then, leave the mix to prove until it has doubled in size.

6. Knock back the dough and add your sultanas and candied mixed peel. Let the dough prove again until it has doubled in size.

7. You want to make the glaze at this point so you can let it cool to room temperature. Add 100ml of orange juice, 150g of cane sugar and 50ml of water to a pan. Heat over the hob and mix together. Reduce the mix by 20% and set it aside.

8. When the dough has proved, split it into dough balls of around 125g-130g and let them prove again until they have doubled in size.

9. Preheat your oven to 185 degrees Celsius and create the cross-flour mix. Just simply add plain flour and water to a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. Place the mixture into a piping bag.

10. Once the dough balls have proved, place them on a baking tray. Pipe the flour mix in a cross shape onto each dough ball.

11. Bake them for 12 minutes.

12. Apply your glaze to the hot cross buns and let them cool.

13. Enjoy them warm with butter.