Hot cross buns

As a devoted mellowbaker, I thought that baking Hot Cross Buns would be a kind of initiation ritual, so I did it on Friday.

Really delicious. I knew something about allspice, but I had never used it before Friday, it was a real discovery. Hot cross Buns are easy to bake, the most important thing, at least from my point of view, is to pay attention to a proper gluten development. I use a planetary mixer (kitchenaid) and I think that you should at least double the time that Hamelman suggests in second speed. He says 3 minutes in second speed, I would go for at least 6 minutes. I let it go for about 4 minutes then I added the currants and mixed for 3 more minutes, for a total of 7 minutes. I think this is necessary for a proper gluten development, or the dough is too soft and fragile.

One thing I don’t understand about the recipe. Usually when you have fats (like butter in this case) these are added after gluten development, I add butter with the flour only when I bake a tarte, in which case case gluten development is explicitly avoided. I understand that in Hot Cross Buns a strong gluten is not really necessary but still adding butter with flour was quite strange for me. Anyway, I have followed Hamelman and the results is really perfect.

Here are some pictures:

Hot cross bun (close up)

Hot Cross Buns

I will bake them again and again and again…