It’s hard to keep up tra­di­tions with all that’s go­ing on in the world to­day. As east­er ap­proach­es this week­end amidst all the im­ple­men­ta­tions of so­cial dis­tanc­ing and hes­i­ta­tion to ven­ture out­side, most of us are ven­tur­ing in­to try­ing our hand at dif­fer­ent recipes at home and we love to see it! A treat en­joyed around the world and es­pe­cial­ly here in trinidad and to­ba­go for East­er are Hot Cross Buns! They’re a sta­ple for East­er and while a lot of us are nat­u­ral­ly gift­ed in the kitchen oth­ers may need some ex­tra help! I’m hap­py to share with you one of my favourite recipe’s for hot cross buns that I have been us­ing for the past six years!

Prepa­ra­tion time: 2hr 25min­utes

Bake time: 20 min­utes

To­tal time 2 hr 45 min­utes

Yield 12-14 buns

In­gre­di­ents

Buns

1/4 cup rum

1/2 cup mixed dried fruit

1/2 cup raisins

1 1/4 cups milk

2 large eggs

1 tsp yel­low colour­ing(op­tion­al)

6 tb­sp but­ter

2 tsp yeast

1/4 cup brown sug­ar

1 tsp cin­na­mon

1/4 tsp ground clove

1/4 tsp nut­meg

1 3/4 tsp salt

1 tb­sp bak­ing pow­der

4 1/2 cups Flour

Egg­wash

1 egg

1 tb­sp milk

Ic­ing

1 cup ic­ing sug­ar

1/2 tsp vanil­la ex­tract (or essence)

Pinch of salt

4 tsp milk (or as need­ed)

Di­rec­tions

1) Light­ly grease a 10" square pan or 9" x 13" pan.

2) Mix the rum with the dried fruit and raisins, cov­er with plas­tic wrap, and mi­crowave briefly, just till the fruit and liq­uid are very warm, and the plas­tic starts to "shrink wrap" it­self over the top of the bowl. Set aside to cool to room tem­per­a­ture. Fruits can al­so be soaked ahead of time.

3) When the fruit is cooled, mix to­geth­er all of the dough in­gre­di­ents (in­clud­ing the eggs) hold out the fruit for the time be­ing as they would be added last. Knead the mix­ture, us­ing an elec­tric mix­er or bread ma­chine or man­u­al­ly, un­til the dough is soft and elas­tic. The dough would be very soft and sticky, stick­ing to the bot­tom of the bowl and your hands as you work with it (greas­ing your hands helps). Fi­nal­ly mix in the fruit and any liq­uid not ab­sorbed.

4) Let the dough rise for 1 hour, cov­ered. It should be­come puffy, though may not dou­ble in bulk.

5) Di­vide and por­tion the dough in­to small pieces, about 3 3/4 ounces each. Use your greased hands to round them in­to balls and arrange them in the pre­pared pan. You'll make 12 to 14 buns.

6) Cov­er the pan, and let the buns rise for 1 hour, or un­til they've puffed up and are touch­ing one an­oth­er. While the dough is ris­ing, pre­heat the oven to 375°F.

7) Pre­pare your egg wash by whisk­ing to­geth­er the egg and milk. Gen­tly brush it over the buns.

8) Bake the buns for 20 min­utes, un­til they're gold­en brown. Re­move from the oven, care­ful­ly turn the buns out of the pan (they should come out in one large piece), and trans­fer them to a rack to cool.

9) Mix to­geth­er the ic­ing in­gre­di­ents, and when the buns are com­plete­ly cool, pipe it in a cross shape on top of each bun.

Recipe by Uni­cak­ery

Uni­cak­ery was start­ed in No­vem­ber of 2017 by Nao­mi An­der­son and func­tions ful­ly as an on­line bak­ery, set with the ob­jec­tives of cre­at­ing high qual­i­ty and unique­ly mag­i­cal desserts.

All desserts are made to or­der. Check us out on face­book and in­sta­gram @Uni­cak­ery and @Uni­cak­ery­dipped