A Baking School Easter Bake with Bake From Scratch and Williams-Sonoma.
As an avid fan of the Great British Bake-Off, I've seen a Hot Cross Bun or two, so when it came up in Baking School, I had to try them.
The Back Story
I have been enrolled in the Bake From Scratch / Williams-Sonoma going on my 4th time nowBake From Scratch / Williams-Sonoma going on my 4th time now. I love all the tips shared and all the ideas for "Bake it your own". I have not tried all of them because I don't have enough people to share the bakes with nor freezer space. However, this one I thought I would give a try since the result was just 12 buns. I could take them on the rounds for holiday greetings (yeah, that's it, wink, wink). The March 25, 2024 class was Hot Cross Buns and Pavlova. It was cool to see that they are not as intimidating as I thought.
The Bake
The recipe I used is similar to this one: Hot Cross Buns, April 2022. There are a few differences but not huge. In class, Brian Hart Hoffman is always tweaking recipes and all variations turn out great.
For this bake there are a few "specialty" items needed:
- Currants
- Candied Orange Peel
I have neither. So I am using golden raisins for the currants and skipping the candied orange peel. I know this means the orange flavor will be a bit less.
I got a true sense of 'hot' preparing the dough when my stand mixer began to overheat. It was so hot that when the top was touched by a damp cloth, steam rose. I will be calling in a repair soon.
I continued the rest of the kneading by hand and was excited that the windowpane test looked good. Then, the first rise looked good, poke test and all. That is until I started to divide the dough.
The recipe calls for 12 equal pieces roughly 122 g each. Uh, well, I didn't get 12. I got 10 with a few grams left over for not even a half a roll. I am not sure what I did wrong. I didn't want to chance overworking the dough by putting it back together and starting again, so I just went with it. What may have worked better would have been to weigh the dough as a whole then calculated what the 12 piece weight would be. I dunno.
The Result
Well, they taste good. That's all that is important, right?!
I don't know why but I have a lot Orange Almond Paste left over. Despite rotating the buns, they didn't brown evenly (my oven may need some attention like my stand mixer...yikes!).
They are though, pillowy and tasty. Not sure that the pictures really show how BIG they are. Since these are from England not as sweet as a lot of American bakes even with the Sugar Syrup added at the end. They also are light. I wondered if they would feel heavy and they don't.
Overall, I like them.
Make Again?
A resounding YES! I want to try again with currants and candied orange peel. And of course, I want to try the Chocolate Cherry version, my two favorite flavors together.