Hot cross buns.
Hot cross buns.
One a penny, two…
That’s enough of that; everybody’s going to be singing that song!
Here we are with the first Mellow Bakers bread: hot cross buns. This is the starter bake for the Hamelman Bread group. As the Handmade Loaf group aren’t starting till next month, I decided to bake Dan Lepard’s hot cross buns, from his earlier book, Baking With Passion, alongside as a comparison.
One thing which surprised me about both recipes was the wetness of the dough. Both, on paper, are 50% hydration which should be very stiff. In reality the egg and butter add to the effective liquid, producing a reasonably sticky dough to work with.
Not quite as sticky as my initial attempt at the Lepard buns; I mistakenly added only half of the required flour after scaling for the sponge instead of the finished dough! I quickly realised what had happened and took corrective steps.
One thing I have learnt today: I hate working with a piping bag. I managed to pipe the crosses eventually, but my hand shall never be the same again!
Speaking of piping crosses, my Hamelman book has the lemon and vanilla variant; it also has the error with 10 × the required metric weight for butter. Watch out for that; I only just realised in time. As far as quantities go, I made just enough crossing paste for 12 buns by using 20g flour and scaling the other ingredients by the bakers percentages.
Hamelman: Bread
Lepard: Baking with Passion
Verdict
And the winner, in this mightily unfair and non-rigorous contest, is… Jeffrey Hamelman. They are spicy without being overpowering; sweet without being sickly; and fruity without losing their inate breadiness.
But I don’t think we’re going to struggle polishing off the other buns either!
Hi Chris! Nice buns! I wonder if there is a special set of ancient copies of Bread reserved for the UK in Amazon central? I haven’t made any hot cross buns yet this year and you have made two batches already – not fair, I have some catching up to do ! all the best Joanna
Thanks for stopping by, Jo. If you’re passing our way in the next 24 hours, you’re welcome to try some! I found your [i]hot cross buns[/i] post in the Mellow archives; and I see you too tried a side-by-side with a Dan Lepard recipe. Looks like we both had trouble with the sponge ingredients! But your photos, for all of your breads, are amazing. I’ve got a lot of practice ahead of me!
Hi Chris,
They look great. Nice job.
And now that the Mellow Baker’s Handmade Loaf are posted you can get a start with them too. I made the Cherry, Fennel & Rye loaf and it was a great hit!
Happy baking,
Naomi
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/23/hot-cross-buns-recipe-custard-tart?INTCMP=SRCH
Dan Lepard published his hot cross bun recipe in the Guardian yesterday. Is it the same one as you used? They look great.
Sticking to granary sourdough today but have a week off soon so will be trying the mellow baking then 🙂
Hi, Naomi. Thanks for the comment. I was very impressed with your bread; I have put that one off until the end of April, but I’m actually looking forward to it after reading about your picnic.
Thanks, Ray. It’s a different recipe to the one in The Guardian; Baking With Passion was first published in 1999 (although my copy is the 2010 edition) and is split between breads and cakes. It’s very nicely presented, but I had only really baked from the cakes section, so I thought hot cross buns gave me a good excuse to crossover to the breads.
I had seen that Dan was going to print a new version in The Guardian, but Thursday night was my best time for baking them, so it wasn’t to be. I am curious how they would turn out with the cider; I’ll keep an eye out to see if any other Mellow Bakers are going to try them out.