A Sour Recipe: Sourdough Hot Cross Buns
The softest hot cross buns made of sourdough you'll ever make!
Easter is around the corner and so are hot cross buns! Here in South Africa they are mandatory on Easter and all stores and bakeries are full of them. I guess through colonization and growing so very popular in UK they are now most common in countries that were former UK colonies. Traditionally they are filled with raisins and the brioche type dough is spiced with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice or mixed spice, lemon and orange zest and topped with a white cross made of traditionally shortcrust pastry and nowadays a flour paste. Most people connect them to being originated in the UK and the cross as symbol of Jesus being crucified while the spices resemble what was used to preserve the body. If you look further back you’ll learn though that there were versions long before Christianity and the cross has various meanings and a lot superstitions surround them, amongst them there is one especially fitting for bakers. If you hang them in your kitchen, everything you bake will turn out especially well and you’ll be protected from fire and odd spirits while eating them helps to recover from sickness. If you look even further and that those buns probably were not as soft as they are today the reason for the cross was probably as simple as breaking them apart more easily as they were always meant to be shared.
My history of making hot cross buns is a rather recent one. In fact I only ever made them two times. For a long time I was so focussed on bread that sweet sourdough didn’t happen often as it also typically is a bit more “complicated” and not as forgiving in regards to proofing. Using yeast was not an option as my body doesn’t tolerate it. Over the last two years I got more into brioche doughs though and this year I felt comfortable enough to tackle hot cross buns and offer them for my weekly bakes. The first recipe I tried was the one from Maurizio that he shared on Food52 a while ago and while they turned out nice I thought I could maybe push them a little further and go higher in sugar and longer in proofing and work with a 3 step brioche dough similar to the one I recently tried from Addie from Breadstalker. I find that brioche doughs with more rises and generally long fermentation time always produce the softest outcomes and the rather high sugar content will make them extra soft and very long lasting. But isn’t a lot of sugar unhealthy you might ask?
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