Good Friday Tradition: Hot Cross Buns

In celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ following his crucifixion on the cross, Hot Cross Buns have been an Easter tradition dating back to the nineteenth century in England. I thought there was absolutely no excuse for me not to attempt these on my own, so this morning I found a few recipes on the Internet. I then created my own version that I adapted to work closely with my basic dinner roll recipe.

The only changes I made to the dinner roll recipe were the following:

• Substituted 1 1/2 cups of warm milk for the 1 1/2 cups of warm water.
  
• Used slightly less than 1/3 cup olive oil and then added 1 Tbsp. butter.
  
• Used 1 tsp (not 2 tsp.) of sea salt.
• For the flour, you can use any combination of grains you desire. I used 1 cup hard white wheat and 2 cups of Kamut to yield the required 4 1/2 cups of flour needed.
• During the quick dough cycle, when the Zoji starts beeping with 20 minutes remaining in the 45 minute cycle with the word "ADD" flashing, I added 1 heaping cup of raisins mixed with 1 tsp. cinnamon.
  
• The only other change was the temperature I baked the Hot Cross Buns at compared to the dinner rolls. I lowered the temperature to 375 degrees and baked for 18 minutes.
  

Here is what your liquids will look like in your bread pan prior to adding the dry ingredients:


You will then add your 4 1/2 cups of flour directly on top of the liquids, along with the lecithin, gluten and yeast before hitting start on the 45 minute quick dough cycle on your Zoji.


While the dough is kneading, I went ahead and prepared the raisins and cinnamon to add during the dough cycle when the "ADD" button starts flashing. I stirred the cinnamon in with the raisins. The original Hot Cross Buns recipe actually calls for currents along with various other spices (nutmeg, etc) and other optional dried fruits. Most Americans have adopted a similar version to this one using the raisins and cinnamon. I did look for some dried currents at Whole Foods this week only I wasn't about to pay $7 for a cup of dried fruit for one recipe....raisins would have to do!
This is what the Zoji will look like when it's time to add the raisins and cinnamon to the dough:


And this is what the dough will look like after you have dumped the cinnamon and raisins into it:

After the dough completes the remaining 20 minutes of kneading and then a short rise, it will look like this:

The dough is now ready to break off and shaped into fist size (or whatever size you wish) balls. I wanted mine to have that break apart appearance, so I placed them close enough together that they'd touch when they baked and pull apart for serving. I used a basic casserole dish, but I suppose you could use a cookie sheet or whatever you fancy.

I let them rise for only about 20 minutes (since I was pressed for time with a 10:30 hair appointment this morning to get to!) This is what they looked like after 20 minutes....good enough as far as I'm concerned. I did brush the tops of each roll with a mixture of an egg yolk and 2 Tbsp. of water to give them a glossy/ golden brown appearance.


And after 18 minutes of baking at 375 degrees, this is what they looked like:

After letting them cool, I added the symbolic cross with a white icing (1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp. Vanilla and 2 TBS. milk).

I was actually really pleased with how these turned out and how easy it was to adapt this recipe to work with the Zoji and an existing tried and true recipe I had for yeast dinner rolls.

We enjoyed a wonderful Good Friday together as a family and enjoyed reading a few different accounts of the Crucifixion from the bible with the kids. We also did an activity courtesy of KidStuf at our church where they supplied each family with a blank canvas and instructions for each family member to graffiti the canvas with words describing areas they struggle with or get in trouble with often. It was interesting to see what our kids chose for the their words, but I'm at least pleased to see that they did agree that whining and disobedience should be on there!! We then hung the canvas on a wall in our kitchen and then on Easter, each family member will take some of the supplied spackling and essentially wash away the words with the white spackling to symbolize how Jesus's death on the cross and then resurrection washed away our sins.

"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Isaiah 1:18