Easy Hot Cross Buns are a wonderfully soft, sweet, spiced bun, traditionally made for Easter time. Serve warm or cold, split open, toast and spread some butter and your favourite jam! Delicious!
Easy Hot Cross Buns! These are a lovely soft roll, with a gentle taste of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. The buns are peppered with raisins, so with every bite of a hot cross bun, you get a burst of warm spices and juicy raisins.
This delicious Hot Cross Buns recipe has been generously shared by one of our great cooks, Adelenne. Here, Adelenne has made a batch of Hot Cross Buns, just in time for Easter. These buns are a soft, spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins and marked with a cross on the top, traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. Some people split them in half and toast them, adding butter and jam, and some just simply eat them plain as they are. They certainly are delicious and incredibly easy to make. The smells when these are baking are just wonderful!
For these hot cross buns, Adelenne has made the bread by hand, it’s simple enough so you don’t need to use a stand mixer to knead the dough.
The hot cross buns are freezer friendly too, so if you made a batch and wanted to freeze some for a later date, maybe even make ahead for a picnic or lunch boxes, then just defrost to room temperature or even pop them in the oven for 5 minutes to warm through if you prefer them warm!
So let’s get straight to the recipe and see how easy it is to make some hot cross buns! Please enjoy and Happy Easter to you!
Recipe by Adelenne Lee
Prep Time: 1 hr 10 mins
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 12 large or 24 small rolls
Ingredients
1 1/4 cup warm milk
1/4 cup castor sugar **** If you can’t get castor sugar, use regular sugar. It just takes a little longer to dissolve.
4 tsp instant yeast
3 3/4 cups AP flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
1/4 tsp clove powder
1/2 stick or 1/4 cup butter
1 cup raisins
2 eggs
The glaze and topping:
1/4 cup AP flour
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp apricot jam (warmed)
Instructions
1. Place the milk, sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside for 10 mins or until it’s frothy.
2. Sift flour, salt and spices in a large bowl then rub the butter in the flour mixture with fingers until it’s
crumbly.
3. Make a well in the middle of the mixture, then stir in the eggs and yeast mixture. Then add the raisins. Combine until a dough forms. You can use a wooden spoon or a stand mixer.
4. Put dough on a floured surface and knead for about 5 mins until dough is smooth and elastic.
5. Put dough in an oiled large bowl and cover with cling wrap. Set aside in a warm place for about 45 mins or until doubled in size. When it’s doubled in size, remove the cover and punch down the dough.
6. Knead again till smooth and divide into 12 large rolls (use a greased 8″ x 12″ tray) or 24 rolls ( use a greased 10″ x 16 ” tray).
I used the latter cos I prefer smaller rolls.
7. Set aside for another 15-20 mins for rolls to rise.
8. Preheat oven to 200 C or 400 F.
9. When rolls have risen, use the flour and water to make a smooth paste and pipe lines across all the rolls to make the crosses (like in my photo).
10. Bake for 10 mins then reduce the temperature to 180 C or 350 F and bake a further 15 mins.
11. Remove from oven and while it’s still warm, brush rolls with warm apricot jam.
We’d love to hear from you and what you thought of our hot cross buns recipe. Did you make any changes or add some other goodies? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and happy cooking!
Delicious Bread Recipes
Here's a selection of delicious bread recipes you can make at home.
ALOHA BREAD! I made the recipe super easy for you, the rolls are sweet, soft, and oh yes..... they even say Aloha when you bite into them!
Heritage Bread - A wonderful soft bread with a variety of seeds.
Easy Rye Bread. This is a lovely straightforward bread recipe for rye bread which gives you a soft bread texture. Great to eat on it's own or use for sandwiches. Freezer friendly too!
Sweet Beer Bread A VERY easy recipe and makes for a perfect side. Always a favorite!
Soft Bread Rolls. Make up a batch of these to go with your BBQ, salads etc. These are light, soft and freezer friendly too!
Bannock Fry Bread Taco. Easy recipe and great for parties, game nights etc
Orange Brioche bread, luxuriously soft and buttery, with a hint of orange throughout.Great for snacks, sandwiches, French Toast or to simply eat warm from the oven as they are.
Cinnamon Raisin Bread. A nice easy bread to make, using your bread maker or oven. Delicious toasted and served warm with some butter. This is also great to make French Toast, YUMMY!
Homemade Challah Bread - Soft and so delicious!
Garlic & Herb Flat Bread. A wonderful easy recipe which is versatile enough to allow you to choose the herbs and flavors you enjoy the most!
Philadelphia Italian Bread - Easy recipe made by hand and great for Cheese Steak Sandwiches, cutting into slices and using in dips..fantastic party food too!
Orange and Cinnamon Swirly Bread
Orange and Cinnamon Swirly Bread, made from scratch, easy recipe. Soft, sticky, creamy, rolls, perfect for the holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Thyme & Sun dried Tomato Bread. A lovely bread recipe, great to have on it's own or with a salad, cold cuts, or soup!
BLUEBERRY CREAM CHEESE SWIRLY BREAD .... oh my! Seriously soft, sticky, creamy yummy! Happy baking!
How to make Gozleme Turkish bread,Turkish pancake - Great filling suggestions in the recipe for you too!
Easy Cinnamon Rolls. A deliciously sweet, soft sticky bun with a great vanilla glaze. These are so delicious warm from the oven with some maple syrup poured over too!
Bacon & Cheese Soft Rolls - Super delicious when eaten fresh from the oven when the cheese is melting!
Light, Fluffy, Soft, VANILLA Filled Buns..oh gosh! Eat these warm or cold, I like them just from the oven! Freezer friendly too
Delicious English Muffins. English bread recipe, often eaten for breakfast. Serve warm with butter! You can eat these sweet or savory! Freezer friendly too! Simple recipe
Cinnamon & Raisin English Muffins - Delicious opened and served warm with a nice spread of butter on each half! Easy stove top recipe.
Hot Cross Buns are a lovely soft, spiced sweet roll, and traditionally made at Easter time, simply split apart and spread with butter and jam. They're lovely eaten warm from the oven or split and toasted. Nowadays, these are enjoyed all year round! Very easy to make and freezer friendly.
- 1 1/4 cup warm milk
- 1/4 cup castor sugar **** If you can't get castor sugar use regular sugar. It just takes a little longer to dissolve.
- 4 tsp instant yeast
- 3 3/4 cups AP flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
- 1/4 tsp clove powder
- 1/2 cup stick or 1/4 butter
- 1 cup raisins
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup AP flour
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbs apricot jam warmed
- Place the milk, sugar and yeast in a bowl. Stir till the sugar is dissolved. Set aside for 10 mins or until it's frothy.
- Sift flour, salt and spices in a large bowl then rub the butter in the flour mixture with fingers until it's crumbly.
- Make a well in the middle of the mixture, then stir in the eggs and yeast mixture. Then add the raisins. Combine until a dough forms. You can use a wooden spoon or a stand mixer.
- Put dough on a floured surface and knead for about 5 mins until dough is smooth and elastic.
- Put dough in an oiled large bowl and cover with cling wrap. Set aside in a warm place for about 45 mins or until doubled in size. When it's doubled in size, remove cover and punch down the dough.
- Knead again till smooth and divide into 12 large rolls (use a greased 8" x 12" tray) or 24 rolls ( use a greased 10" x 16 " tray). I used the latter cos I prefer smaller rolls.
- Set aside for another 15-20 mins for rolls to rise.
- Preheat oven to 200 C or 400 F.
- When rolls have risen, use the flour and water to make a smooth paste and pipe lines across all the rolls to make the crosses (like in my photo).
- Bake for 10 mins then reduce the temperature to 180 C or 350 F and bake a further 15 mins.
- Remove from oven and while it's still warm, brush rolls with warm apricot jam.
Joanna
I follow instructions bring came out great but the bake time was to much next time I will lessen time by five minutes.
Lynne
Awesome recipe!!!
Julie
Please what is AP flour.
Lovefoodies
Hi Julie, AP flour is all purpose flour or plain flour. Hope that helps!
Kathy Shaw
Loved the Hot Cross Buns they turned out nice and fluffy. Tried another recipe and they were denser. I added some cardamon and increased the cinnamon, plus added some citrus peel and reduced the raisins to equal the 1 cup.
Mrs. Hamilton
Great recipe I added sweetened coconut and I also soaked my raisins in orange juice until it was time to add them to the flour mix.