These were hot cross buns 2017!
I could have adapted the recipe I did
last year, but I wanted to conduct an experiment to turn the dinner rolls that I made
last Christmas and liked very much into hot cross buns. The dinner rolls were moist and fluffy. I though adding raisins, candied citrus peels and spices into the dough would become wonderful hot cross buns. Or was it just my imagination? We'll see.
I mixed about 1/2 cup of dark raisins, about 1/2 cup of golden raisins, about 1/3 cup of the mix of candied citron, orange peels and lemon peels that I used for
Christmas pudding. Also, added 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of all spice, and 1/4 teaspoon of mace. I divided the dough into 10, and baked them as individual buns.
Ta-da!
Individual buns had an advantage. I was able to draw "cross" on top on only buns that we were going to eat!
As another option, we could easily skip the sugary topping. Next morning we simply halved buns and toasted them. With butter spread, they were lovely! Probably we preferred this way because we are basically not a big fan of sugar glaze.
The buns were not really fluffy, kinda dense somehow, but wonderfully moist. They were nicely spiced and tasted festive. Making hot cross buns will be my new tradition for Easter. I have already had an idea for next year - instead of the sugar icing "cross," I will etch a cross into the bun dough before baking. Actually it seems more traditional, and in fact J suggested it. He knows the best for us!
