The classic Easter treat, best served with butter. For anyone who prefers to use their sourdough starter over yeast as the leavening agent.
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Cook Time30 minutesmins
Resting Time1 dayd6 hourshrs
Total Time50 minutesmins
Course: Breakfast
Cuisine: Australian
Keyword: bread, buns, Easter, hot cross buns, sourdough
Servings: 12buns
Ingredients
Levain
25gripe sourdough starter100% hydration
90gwholemeal flour
90mlwaterluke warm
Dough
380gwhite bread flour
130gwholemeal flour
10gsalt
50gsugar
1 1/2tspground cinnamon
1/4tspground cloves
1/4tspground all spice
230mlmilkat room temperature
2eggsat room temperature
60gunsalted buttersoftened
120graisins / sultanas / currents(whatever is preferred)
50ml Marsala
50mlhot water
Crosses
40mlwater
40gall purpose flour
1tspicing sugar
Glaze
1tbspsugar
1tbspwater
pinchofground cinnamon
Instructions
9:00pm (Thursday): Prepare the levain
In a small bowl, mix the ripe starter, water and wholemeal flour until combined.
Cover and let it rest on the kitchen counter until the next morning. Your levain is ready when it has formed lots of little bubbles. You can test its readiness by checking whether a teaspoon of the mix floats in a glass of water. If it does, it is active and ready to be used.
10:00am (Friday): Make the dough
The next morning, soak the raisins in the Marsala and hot water for 30 minutes until they have absorbed some of the liquid and are a little softer. Drain the liquid and set raisins aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flours, spices, salt and sugar and quickly mix together by hand.
Add the levain, milk, butter and eggs and mix on low speed using the dough hook for around 3 minutes or until the dough is starting to come together.
Add the sultanas and and keep kneading until the dough feels a little glutinous and less sticky. Around 5 minutes.
Cover and let it rest in a warm place. After 30 minutes, stretch and fold the dough (this is so much easier when your hands are wet) four times, rotating the bowl 90 degrees each time. Cover and let it rest another 30 minutes. Repeat the whole process four times.
Cover and let the dough rest in a warm place for 2-3 hours. It should double in size and look fluffy and bubbly. On a cold day, this might take up to 10 hours.
3:00pm: Shape the dough
Lightly dust the bench and empty the dough onto the surface. Divide into 12 equal portions and shape every portion into a tight little ball.
Place the balls into a lined 20x30cm baking dish in a 3x4 formation. They should touch each other but not be super squeezed in.
Cover and rest in the fridge until the next morning.
8:00am (Saturday): Finish the buns
Preheat the oven to 180C (fan forced).
To make the crosses, mix all the ingredients together to form a soft dough. You might have to adjust the amount of flour or water. Fill into a piping bag with a 3mm round nozzle. Pipe onto the the buns so that each bun has a cross on it.
Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes.
To make the glaze, mix the sugar, water and cinnamon in a small saucepan and simmer until it becomes slightly syrupy.
Once they are done, take them out of the oven and brush the glaze over the warm buns until evenly covered and shiny.
Let the buns cool a little, then serve slightly warm, with butter of course.