- Spring is in the air
and it's time for one of my favorite treats.
It's not super sweet though they're hot cross buns.
One a penny two a penny hot cross buns.
This is like a delicious little roll
of sweetened enriched spiced bread filled with
the fruit of your choice.
It's topped with the cross, a little glaze
and it's just plain delicious.
I can't think of anything that says springtime
more than this.
Hey you're watching Preppy Kitchen
where I John Kanell teach you how
to make delicious homemade dishes
to share with your family and friends.
These hot cross buns are a delicious treat
that you're gonna be making over and over.
So let's get started.
First off, we're gonna zest and orange
and if your kids ate your oranges,
you can zest a little tangerine instead.
It's basically the same, so I'm gonna it zest really quick
and set it aside but we will be using the juice.
If you're doing oranges one orange is fine.
If you're doing little tiny tangerines
for some reason use two.
About a tablespoon of zest later.
This can get set aside
and now let's talk about the dried fruit.
Hot cross buns can you use any kind
of dried fruit you'd like.
You can use like dried apple what ever.
Today we're using raisins, it's the most commonly available
but I will tell you that raisins
are not my absolute favorite ingredients.
So we're gonna gussy them up a bit.
So squeeze a few tablespoons
of orange juice over your raisins.
And if you're in the mood, you could use a tablespoon
or two of dark rum just pour it over.
The rum is of course optional,
but if you've seen my carrot cake video,
which you can click up here for you know
that they are not my favorite thing
to eat unless they're soaked in rum.
So for a personal treat, I'm gonna soak them in rum.
Give it a little mix and we're gonna microwave this
for like 45 seconds so the raisins plump up a bit.
These are out of the microwave
and they smell so good that rum
and orange juice really makes a difference.
So I highly recommend although both are kind of optional.
Okay, set that aside and now it's time
for the dry ingredients.
I'm sifting everything into the bowl of my stand mixer using
a sifter but it's all on a scale
so I don't have use measuring cups or anything.
It's so much easier and more accurate.
All right, three and two thirds cups
of 440 grams of all purpose flour, in you go.
One quarter cup of sugar,
one quarter cup of packed light brown sugar,
one teaspoon of salt.
These hot cross buns are getting a lot of spices
but if you want, you know cinnamon is fine, it's delicious.
So one teaspoon of cinnamon.
But if you wanna keep going,
you can do half a teaspoon of allspice,
a quarter teaspoon of my favorite cardamom, so aromatic.
And I'm doing a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg
but whenever I use nutmeg, it's always freshly ground.
It tastes so much better that way.
I mean all spices do but especially nutmeg in my opinion.
Use a micro plane just add that in there.
So good, let's sift it out now.
And before I finish sifting it out,
I will be adding in my yeast.
You have two options for this recipe,
if you're gonna do a instant yeast like I am,
right into the dry ingredients if you're using
the rapid yeast, then into the wet ingredients,
the instant yeast is the same, it has smaller granules.
So you don't have to worry about any of
that pre-mixing you do the other stuff.
My other note for you is that
when you open your packet of yeast and you dump it out,
that's not all the yeast, look at this it's completely full
of yeast on the inside.
So just use your finger and get it all out there.
It likes to stick to the envelope.
Sift it out and now we have a ton of this brown sugar
which I wanted to break up in the sifter,
so there's no lumps of brown sugar
being annoying in the dough.
We're done with the scale I can get set aside.
Let's give everything a whisk and set it aside.
For the wet ingredients,
we're using one half of a cup of sour cream
and I just can't help myself sour cream gives you
this nice like moisture and if you don't have it,
you can use buttermilk instead I suppose.
One half of a cup or 120 ml of whole milk, in you go
a tablespoon of vanilla
and six tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature.
It can be a bit cold, but we're gonna warm everything up
so it's gonna melt either way.
Okay, this delicious concoction is gonna go into
the microwave now and we're gonna, you know,
zap it for 30 seconds at a time and mix mix mix in between.
We want it to be nice and warm because when we come back,
that yeast needs to be activated
so we're aiming for a little bit over 110
by the time we pour it in, it needs to be 110.
My butter is all melted mixtures mixed up
and right like 120 which is a bit warm.
However, this ice cold counter is gonna cool it down ASAP.
And don't think I forgot about that orange zest.
So right now we're gonna add that in.
It's gonna infuse into our mixture
and just make everything yummy, scrummy delicious.
Making a bread is like a bit of work that people are not
necessarily used to if you normally make cakes
or cupcakes or quick breads, there's the rising time etc.
So I always think you should make it worth your while
by adding in all the flavors
to make it completely delicious.
Otherwise like just go buy it hallo.
Okay, this is nice and infused,
so it's time to get our stand mixer and get to work.
Before that though, just crack an egg into a bowl
and give it a quick stir.
Okay, everything's nice and warm now so it's time to mix
the dough together, get that dough hook out.
If you don't have a stand mixer,
you can of course use an electric hand mixer
with those little dose swirly attachments.
While this runs on low,
we're gonna carefully pour it in.
Use a spatula to get the rest of that out there.
Okay, so this is gonna take a minute or two.
You wanna have the dough come together
and then be tacky but not sticky.
So you'll see what that means in a second.
For now, just let it run,
you can take it off level two if you want.
It's funny 'cause at first,
it seems like there might not be enough moisture in here
and you're just gonna have a bunch of like flour,
but it does come together, it just takes a minute.
Okay, and while this is running, don't forget,
one egg gets just drizzled in there.
So now it's all come together.
However, it's definitely super sticky.
So, let it run for a bit and when you think it's ready,
we'll test it out.
Of course, unlike in a cake batter where you're like trying
to not over mix it and develop gluten,
in a bread, you do need to develop a gluten.
So there's a lot of mixing, needing and letting it rise.
It smells so good right now, so good.
Let's take a look, so good.
It smells so good, I can't even tell you.
Okay, so right now it's sticky,
but it's not sticking to my fingers, so it's tacky.
Which means that we're ready to knead it out now
I'm so excited.
I would like to see it have a bit more body.
So I'm gonna give it just another few seconds.
Okay, now it's ready to go.
So once that dough is tacky
and everything seems about right,
you can add those raisins in.
So sprinkle them around and you're just incorporating
them into the dough.
Mind you, I'm not adding all the liquids in
I'm just adding the raisins, mix them in.
Okay, those raisins are incorporated.
So now it's time to knead the dough out.
The dough might seem a bit wet to you
and there's a little bit less flour than
the recipe requires in the recipe
because you're gonna be kneading it out
on a well floured surface.
And by the time you're done kneading,
that flour will be incorporated, everything will be perfect.
So this takes a few minutes.
It'd be about five but actually very relaxing.
And what you're gonna see is the dough gets a nice kind
of like silky texture on the outside
and it becomes more springy.
And just please note that you may have more
or less kneading time depending on
if you mixed more or less initially.
Fold it over, then use the, these raisins are so good
by the way I've been snacking on them.
Don't tell anyone.
I don't even like raisins normally.
Press the dough forward to the palm of your hand.
If you lose a raisin or two
that's free to snack on or whatever.
And this is getting pretty springy already.
I'm actually very happy with it.
We can take a look at the texture Just a moment.
See this looks like and as needed,
we can add more flour like salt bae with flour.
So I like to turn the dough use the palm of my hand.
It does push forward turn, you know bring it in turn.
It's a little pattern.
Most of you apply need already.
Sometimes it can be really intimidating
if you're just doing it for the first or second time.
Brian my cameraman wants to open up a package of candy.
Go ahead.
So let's take a little test and see what this is like.
You wanna see if the center is springy to the touch
and it's springing back, but not all the way it's not done.
We need to develop a little bit more gluten
for these bread rolls.
My kids have gone raisin crazy
they love it in their oatmeal in the morning.
I'm like why, why would you do this to yourself?
But they've been eating them so much
I'm questioning my own taste on maybe raisins are good.
I don't know.
You can let me know in the comments if you are pro
or anti-raisin.
I have very strong feelings about a normally I feel like
this is good, so we have our dough here.
Spring and back to the touch that is ready.
This is ready to go into a proofing drawer now
or a nice warm cozy place.
I was so excited when I found out
because I just forgotten that my oven has a proofing drawer
so it has like a nice warm cozy place for things to live
and get warm.
Wipe your bowl down with some oil.
Then pull up your dough in there.
Kind of remember what the size was
because when you come back,
it's ready for the next step after it's doubled in size.
You can cover this with plastic
or using my little handy bonnet which I like.
I would say you want to give it about an hour,
maybe to two hours is a very rich delicious dough.
It's like some dry bready sad dinner roll.
So it's gonna need a little bit of extra time to rise up
because that yeast has to work a bit harder
because of all the fat we've pumped into there.
One last thing if you don't have a proofing drawer,
I like to just set my oven to like 120 then turn it off,
pop the dough in there and just leave it closed.
It'll be nice and cozy.
Perfect for dough to rise in.
Okay, so a couple hours went by,
took to the kids for a walk.
It was a nice time and in the meantime, look at this.
What huge and I wish you could smell it.
It smells amazing.
All right, we're gonna dump this out
onto a lightly floured surface.
And here's the deal.
You don't have to use a scale for this.
You can totally eyeball your rolls
but I'm a little bit crazy.
So I'll be weighing them out to be about 70 grams each.
Use a bench scraper,
I always use this for decorating cakes,
so I get a kick out of using it for its intended purpose,
which is to cut dough a little bit big.
Rolling a roll is so easy,
but it does take just a little bit of technique.
Grab the corners, like this, Okay.
And now we're gonna place it face down.
And then with our hand, make a tight ball here.
Roll it around like this should be less floured.
So gather the sides up, place the rounded side, face up,
and then roll it into a ball
and then you have a nice perfect little dinner roll.
If you see some raisins poking through, that's totally fine.
Unless it isn't, in which case pick them up,
it's your choice.
You don't have to overwork the dough.
Just a little bit of these small circle motions
will bring it together into a nice ball.
And just repeat that process for all of your rolls.
You might have one at the very end
that's a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller.
In Elizabethan times,
these hot cross buns were highly regulated
and you could only make them during certain times of year
of course, and funerals.
They tried to stamp them out but it didn't work.
People like their hot cross buns too much.
Here are my rolls,
I'm gonna space them a little bit more evenly
because I don't want anyone to be crowded
when they have their second rise.
This is gonna go into a warm place.
Once again, you could put it into your oven
or just like let it hang out if it's a nice warm day.
You will however want to cover them so either cover
them in plastic or a very slightly damp towel.
We'll be back once they've significantly increased in size,
with the magic of editing.
♪ One penny ♪
♪ Two a penny ♪
♪ Hot cross buns. ♪
That's going in the final take.
It smells amazing in here, amazing.
Let me just tell you that
and those rolls have had their second rise.
They're ready to go into the oven right after
we make those crosses into our egg wash.
So, into a bowl, we have one third of a cup of flour,
and then a quarter cup of water.
All we're doing right now is just making a paste
if you will.
So it has to be pipe able.
Don't worry about it too much.
As long as you have the correct piping consistency,
everything is gonna be okay mix mix mix.
That's good, see this nice pipe able consistency.
The other thing we have to do is make a simple egg wash
in case you're not aware one egg
and then a tablespoon cream
or half and half and then just mix it up.
Okay, we can set that aside now and get our rolls out.
I'm so excited transfer your flour slurry into a piping bag
or a plastic bag with the tip snipped off
or a perfectly rolled piece of parchment paper
because you went to pastry school.
So excited about this, okay, so snip the tip off of it.
So for the cross,
it's gonna be easiest if you just pipe in a slow
and controlled fashion and then do one strive
and then the other way.
So just go all the way across slow and steady.
- [Brian] I thought you did that after you scored them?
- Stop the presses, you need to do the egg wash first.
I will admit my error I'm not gonna fix it with editing
So let's gently brush wash that egg wash onto here.
What cross piped on first,
I don't know what you're talking about.
So like, yes, baking is a science
but it's actually pretty forgiving
as long as you don't like panic.
Once you panic, things can go wrong.
It's like drowning.
So just be gentle.
I have a set of soft brushes I use for my egg washes
because the really coarse ones that you get all
the times can kind of just mar the surface too much
they manipulate the dough.
You wanna be gentle with these buns.
Say it with me hot cross buns.
I wonder if that's like a reality free song
we can use in this.
One a penny two a penny hot cross buns.
All right after the egg wash.
Now it's time for that cross so gently, gently.
Let's pipe it across one side first.
And as you're going just be careful at the edge.
So with that first stripe completed
now we can turn these around
and do our next step.
And this by the way is reminding me of
my cinnamon roll recipe which you should click up here for
they are the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had in my life.
And I'm saying that as the person who created the recipe,
so a little biased, but you trust me, right?
Hot cross buns are all cross,
they're gonna go into the oven at 375 FN
that'd be like gas mark for plus a little extra.
I'm still not sure how that works exactly.
I got some very, very helpful advice
in one of the last videos though,
so I appreciate everyone who chimed in
and let me know about gas marks.
It's very interesting, into the oven,
Out of the oven piping hot, perfectly golden.
I mean, I'm gonna, look at that, that's nice.
They're basically ready to eat
but why not add a little bit extra
because they are hot cross buns and you made them yourself.
So whip up a glaze.
You can do a sugar based glaze
or I made this time an apricot glaze.
These are of course best out of the oven.
Little bit warm, but if you're making them
and you have some extra for the next day go ahead
and just warm them up really briefly either in
the microwave or just pop them into a warm up
and just so they kind of heat up and get loose again.
That's it, these are ready for some springtime celebrations
but first a bite.
I made a few extra and before I sneak a bite let me tell you
that you need to check out my cinnamon roll recipe.
It is so good and it's like amazing pull apart melts
in your mouth deliciousness you'll be eating the whole
thing not sharing it you'll be like what's that smell?
I don't know.
Anyways, but now it's time for a bite.
Look at this
It's so like rich and delicious.
I know that already excited for you.
I mean I wish all bread tasted like this.
Nice spices of beautiful aroma and soaking those raisins
in rum and orange juice,
it makes all the difference in the world.
If you like this video hit that like button and subscribe
and I'll see you in the next video.