Personally, I’ve always been a fan of tangy & sour things over out-and-out sweetness. I used to pour a lot of my pocket money into Astro Belts and Wham bars (and if you’re not in the UK and didn’t grow up in the eighties, then I’m afraid you’re simply going to have to miss out on this sweet-sour nostalgia); so, when I figured that hot cross buns would be a perfect Easter recipe (because HEY IT’S EASTER! And I bet I am literally the only person writing a hot-cross bun recipe right now and no one else has even thought of it), I wanted something with a little more bite to it. And so: Marmalade Hot Cross Buns! And not just that, but as a bonus you get an entire bonus recipe for homemade sugar-free marmalade .
Despite the fact that you’re basically making bread, this is both easy and quick. And I should know – I made two batches two days in a row. But only because I made a minor slip with the the first batch and, whilst the tasted perfect, they photogenically looked more like Ron Howard’s brother (sorry Clint). So I baked a whole other batch just for pretty photos .
So now that you’re feeling like my special precious snowflake: LET’S GET OUR BUNS IN THE OVEN.
Method
For the buns
Sift 250 g strong white bread flour into a large bowl and add 1 tsp cinnamon , 0.5 tsp ground ginger , 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg and 2 pinch stevia (this is entirely optional – they will be plenty sweet enough without it), then stir together with a metal spoon.
Chop 25 g soft butter (at least room temperature) into thumbnail-sized chunks and drop into the flour mix, spacing them apart. Then get your hands in there and rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, as if you’re a city financier greedily counting all of your dough-money. Continue rubbing until you can’t find any more lumps of butter in the flour.
Pour 100 g dried mixed fruit into the bowl. Then take 1 orange(s) and zest the peel of the whole fruit into the bowl with a metal grater (being careful not to zest down to the flesh) and mix together with a metal spoon. Then add 3.5 g dried yeast and briefly mix again.
Warm 100 ml skimmed milk up in a microwave-safe container (I use this 250ml Pyrex jug ) until it’s quite warm, but nowhere near scalding – around 30 seconds in a 700W microwave – then add 1 egg(s) and whisk together with a fork until combined. Be careful not to make the milk too hot, or it will scramble the egg.
Pour the milk-egg mix into your of flour & dried fruit, then start to mix together either with a metal spoon or a regular knife (the kind you use for dinner, rather than the kind you chop sushi with) – you may find the mix can clump on the spoon, but is less likely to do so on the knife. It should combine to a soft doughy texture that’s just sticky, but definitely not wet. Once it’s mixed, leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes.
Once the dough has rested, remove from the bowl and roll into a sausage on a lightly-floured surface – the length of the sausage doesn’t matter, but try to square off the ends. Once it’s an even diameter all the way through, cut it into thirds, then cut each third into halves so that you have six slices of dough. Briefly roll each slice into a ball in your hands, then place on a baking sheet covered with parchment/greaseproof baking paper, squashing them down ever so slightly so that they’re not quite spherical.
Using a sharp knife, carefully score a (very) shallow cross into each bun, running the tip of the knife all the way up the side and over the surface of the bun – it only needs to be 3-5mm deep. If the knife is tugging at the dough rather than slicing through it, you can instead score the line with a see-saw motion – just make sure you’re not actually cutting all the way through! We just need a shallow guide for the cross.
Cover your dough balls with cling film, wrapping around the edge of the tray, but not too tight – you need to leave enough room for them to grow. They’ll need to prove for at least 1 hour – I left mine for 2 hours, just to get that little extra rise.
Pre-heat the oven to 180°c fan (200°c without fan, 390°f).
Once the dough is proved, you should see those scored crosses have slit open just a little – that should make adding our crosses a lot easier, and prevent the messy bleed you can get. To make the piping for the crosses, we’re basically going to make some glue : add {flour-cross} and 3 tsps water to a small bowl or ramekin and mix with a teaspoon. The mix will be pretty thick, but resist the urge to add more water – thick piping works best.
If you already have some piping bags to hand, simply take one and unfurl the edges over a large mug, then spoon your glue water-flour mix into it. If you don’t have any piping bags to hand, you can pretty easily make your own with baking paper . Once your mix is the bag, cut off the end and carefully pipe the mixture onto your buns, using the scored lines as a guide. You’ll want to go right from the bottom of one side to the other, but don’t worry too much if it pulls away slightly – you can tuck it back into place with the edge of a knife.
Put your dough buns in the oven for 12-15 minutes, but check after 12 – you may find they’re slightly more pale on one side – in which case, just spin the pan around and put back in for another couple of minutes. Once they’re done (and an easy way to tell is to tap the bottom – if they sound kinda hollow, they’re done). These will be a little more like traditional rolls than the super-soft supermarket variety because we’ve used strong bread flour. As soon as they’re cooled down just enough to pick up without burning your fingers, transfer to a wire rack – then they’re ready for glazing once you’ve done your marmalade (see below, or skip to the last step).
For the marmalade
Now, I’ll preface this by saying that you can, if you want, buy a jar of no-added-sugar marmalade . If you want to do that, then you can skip this part entirely. However, you can make your own marmalade in very little time at all, and at an absolute fraction of the cost. Wanna do that instead? Okay!
You can use 1 orange(s) that you zested for the buns, which means that nothing has gone to waste in this recipe; simply peel off the zested skin from the orange and break apart the segments. Don’t remove the pith (the white stringy stuff) – that contains pectin, which is going to help the marmalade set. Also, don’t throw the peel out just yet.
If you can feel any seeds in the orange segments, pop them out – we don’t want them in the marmalade. Put your segments into a thick-bottomed pan (a small milk pan like this one is ideal) and slice them up as best you can with a sharp knife. Try not to get orange juice everywhere though.
It’s unlikely that you were able to grate the top or bottom of the orange peel when making the dough, as it usually tends to dip inward. Cut off the piece of peel that’s still mostly intact – you only need an eighth of the peel in total – and cut into very thin strips with a sharp knife. Then cut across those strips, dicing them into very tiny little squares of peel. Add this to the pan.
Add half of 1 cup water , and put the pan on the hob at a medium heat, bringing it to a rolling boil, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula. Carefully try to mush down the larger pieces of orange with the edge of the spoon or spatula until the mixture is more of a pulp.
Once it’s brought to a boil, turn the heat to low and leave the mixture to simmer, stirring occasionally. Since we’re not making a lot of marmalade, you should only need to do this for about 10 minutes. Once it’s reduced and you’re left with mostly just orange again, add the remainder of the water and wait until it starts to simmer again, then add 30 g xylitol and stir until it’s dissolved. Keep stirring every minute or so, making sure that the marmalade isn’t burning or sticking to the sides of the pan.
After another 5-10 minutes, you should have a thick-looking marmalade mix. The easiest way to tell if it’s done is take a small teaspoon of marmalade and spoon it onto a cool plate. After a few seconds it should cool to a more jelly-like consistency. For this recipe, making the marmalade a little thinner can work, but it’s totally down to your own tastes as to what you’d prefer.
While the buns are still hot, dip a silicon pastry brush into your freshly-made marmalade and glaze each one, making sure to glaze the whole top of bun (including the sides), then leave to cool for 5-10 minutes.
Hide Method
Once your buns are cooled, slice them open with a bread knife, then slather in butter and your fresh homemade marmalade, and devour it , just the way that terrifying rabbit with a basket full of chocolate intended. Happy Easter!
