This Easter I was on a mission to make Hot Cross Buns for the first time. Since taking a yeast bread course last year, I am much more comfortable with this type of project than I was last year. The problem was finding the right recipe. I always start off a new bake by spending endless hours reading of blog after blog of recipes hoping to finding the right one. I decided to play it safe and go with a classic Paul Hollywood recipe. It seemed to have all the right ingredients and he is a master baker versus a cook who bakes.
Paul Hollywood Hot cross buns:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2066661/hot-cross-buns
I made his recipe three times making changes along the road and had mixed success. First time I followed it to the letter and found they browned too quickly and were under baked. The dough was extremely wet and hard to work into a smooth dough. Second attempt I cut out the fresh apple , added the dried fruit and spices at the start versus after first rise as recipe suggests ,cut back to only two proves, lowered the temperature to 180 C and also doubled the cinnamon and added mixed spice. After second bake I found spice and temperature changes were perfect but dough was dense. On my third attempt I let the dough prove over night in the refrigerator after first rise and helped with the texture but I still would go back to a third prove. All the bakes came out extremely edible and made the kitchen smell like heaven but were they perfect? No ….
So I was back to the recipe search. I found this American recipe by the Pioneer woman that just worked like magic.
Sometimes on paper a recipe seems perfect and maybe I over complicated it but the Paul Hollywood recipe just never worked for me and this one did first time lucky!
Happy Easter!
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