I have never done much baking, let alone vegan hot cross buns. Take my hat off to people who bake. It is never as easy as it looks.
I took me 3 attempts to get these right. The first attempt I managed to kill off the yeast, and in the second I over-kneaded the dough, so they were as as tough as old boots!
I hunted around for recipes, and ended up with taking bits and pieces from a number of them.
It has taught me that flours are not all the same, and that yeast is very sensitive.
So here is the recipe I used. And check out all the notes at the end.
This makes six buns.
Ingredients:
For the buns –
- 4 g dried yeast
- 160 g plant milk
- 1 T olive oil (or any veg oil)
- 2 T castor sugar
- 250 g white bread flour
- 2 t allspice (or alternative – see notes)
- Pinch fine salt
- 100 g raisins
- Zest of half an orange
For the cross –
Flour and water – see notes
For the glaze –
Apricot jam and a little water – see notes
What to do:
1 Measure, sift and whisk the flour, allspice and salt into a bowl.
2 Pour the milk into another bowl. Whisk in the castor sugar. Make sure the mixture is at room temp (23 C)
3 Add in the yeast. Whisk lightly to combine. Leave for a while till yeast activates and bubbles.
4 Mix the raisins and orange zest into the flour mix.
5 Add the olive oil to the yeast/milk mix.
6 Add this into the flour mix. Start to combine into a dough, using a spatula.
7 Once mostly combined, use hands to knead the dough into a ball. About 2 minutes (See notes)
8 Place the dough on an oiled dish, cover and leave in a warm place to proof for at least an hour, till doubled in size. (Use dehydrater if necessary)
9 Knock back the dough a little. Divide the dough into six balls.
10 Place the balls on a baking sheet, almost touching. Leave to rest/proof for another hour.
11 Meanwhile, make a flour water mix for the crosses, and make the glaze by warming some apricot jam in a little water.
12 Preheat the oven to 180 C
13 Spread some glaze onto the buns. Make the crosses with the flour/water mix.
14 Bake in oven for 15 to 20 mins till golden brown.
15 Remove from oven. Apply another layer glaze. Cover while cooling.
Notes:
1 This recipe used South African Snowflake White Bread flour – flours differ tremendously! This affects the kneading time. The first recipe that I tried, called for 10 minutes kneading. This resulted in the tough result, probably because too much gluten was developed.
This time I kneaded for about 2 minutes and the result was good.
2 Yeast is very sensitive. Too cold and it does not activate. Too warm and you will kill the yeast.
They say room temperature – This can of course vary, so I found temp of liquid should be 23 C
3 The first recipe called for the oil to be added to the milk and sugar mix. This seemed to inhibit the growth of the yeast. So I added the oil in at the final mix stage.
4 For Allspice Mix replacement – ½ ground cinnamon, ¼ ground cloves, ¼ ground nutmeg
5 The cross – the flour/water mix depends on how you want to apply – pasty if you are going to pipe it on. Or make a dough in strips and lay it on top.
6 The glaze – warm a little apricot jam in a bowl with a touch of water to get the consistency you want.
