Hot Cross Buns

Bread Challenge Week 13

For Easter brunch with my family I decided to bring Hot Cross Buns in addition to my delicious Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls. I figured I could treat my family as guinea pigs and have them try my firsts ever batch of Hot Cross Buns. I chose the Hot Cross Buns recipe in my handy dandy Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook because of it’s simplicity, since this challenge is to make me try my hand at wide variety of basic recipes.

It took me about 35 minutes of hands on time to get these little guys made and about 4 hours from start to finish. 4 hours is less time than it took to make my yummy cinnamon rolls, but these aren’t quite as decadent so I’m on the fence if that time is worth it.

We ate these rolls, along with our huge meal of eggs, ham, bacon, hash browns, fruit, cheesy potatoes, whole wheat cinnamon rolls and more. The dough for these Hot Cross Buns smelled a-maz–ing while rising and baking, seriously delicious, but the actual rolls were a little bland. They were also, a little chewy. If I were to make these again I think I would really amp up the amount of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves used as well as use some orange zest like other recipes suggest.

Overall I wasn’t very impressed with these rolls. They are a one-trick pony, but since they are supposed to be a holiday bread that makes sense. Luke wasn’t super impressed either but Maddy licked the icing off of 3 different rolls while only actually eating about a 1/3 of one of them. I don’t plan to make this recipe again but I really think with some fiddling I could come up with a really yummy Hot Cross Bun. But before I get started on trying I should ask, do you have any awesome Hot Cross Buns recipes? Or have you ever had an awesome Hot Cross Bun? I was expecting more from this recipe, but since I haven’t had a Hot Cross Bun before I’m wondering if maybe I’m expecting too much in general.

Flavor: 3
Hands on time: 3
Total time: 2
Recipe: 4
versatility: 2
make it again: 2
Catherine: 0
Luke: 0
Maddy: 1

Total Score: 17
(what is this Bread Challenge and how are recipes scored?)

Previous Bread Challenge reviews and scores:
100% Whole Wheat Bread – Week 12
Thin Wheat Crackers – Week 11
Irish Soda Bread – Week 10
Double Blueberry Muffins – Week 9
Oatmeal Batter Bread – Week 8
Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls – Week 7
Cheesy Pretzels – Week 6
Light Rye Bread – Week 5
Country-Style Whole-Wheat Pita – Week 4
Carrot Raisin Quick Bread – Week 3
Potato Bread – Week 2
Focaccia – Week 1