Vegan Golden Hot Cross Buns
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This year we spiced up our hot cross buns for Easter and gave this chai turmeric recipe from the talented Loria Stern via Mud Australia. We are a little lazy when it comes to baking so left out the crosses as didn’t have a piping bag and didn’t want to buy for just one recipe, hence the no cross! This was our first attempt and would say you probably need to add more flowers than we did to make more of an impact, or maybe to add after baking. But they taste amazing!
You’ll need a mixing bowl, baking tray.
Makes 12 buns
Ingredients (when in italics available from the van)
For Buns:
500g white bread flour
75g coconut sugar (60p)
3 tsp ground turmeric (approx 25p)
2 tsp Chai Tea (we used loose rooibos tea with cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and star anise approx 50p)
1 tsp sea salt (approx 5p)
finely grated zest of 1 orange + 1 lemon
10 g (1 tbsp) active dried yeast (15p)
80g melted coconut oil
300g coconut milk
100g sultanas (50p)
Flowers + Crosses:
60g plain flour
60g filtered water
2 tbsp apricot jam to glaze (if no jam can make sugar glaze mixing demerara and water together and heating to reduce to a syrup)
2 cups of yellow edible flowers, washed and dried (we used primrose and gorse which are easily foraged around Easter)
Total cost from Incredible Bulk approx £2.37
Method:
Pour coconut milk and sugar in a small saucepan and heat until steamy. Add your chai tea of choice and let steep for 30 minutes or so. Strain through and discard the tea but reserve the coconut milk.
While tea is infusing put the flour, turmeric, and salt in a bowl and mix together. Add the citrus zests and mix to combine.
Once tea has infused and the milk has been strained add your yeast to the milk mix and leave to blossom for 5-10 mins.
While waiting melt your coconut oil.
Once yeast has blossomed add yeast milk mix to bowl together with the melted coconut oil and mix together to create your dough.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic.
Place the kneaded dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea bowl and set aside in a warm place to rise until it has at least doubled in size, about 1 1/2-2 hours.
Once the dough has risen, shape into a rough rectangle, scatter over the sultanas. Divide the dough into twelve even portions (about 75 grams each) and roll them into balls. Try to make sure that the sultanas are tucked into the bun and not on the outside of the bun.
Place the buns onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper, loosely cover the tray with a tea towel and set aside to rise until about doubled in size, around 45 minutes. The buns should now be touching each other and spring back slowly if you gently poke one with a finger. If it springs back quickly they need a little longer.
While the buns are rising preheat the oven to 190 C and prepare the paste for the crosses (if doing!):
Place the flour in a bowl and gradually stir in enough water to form a thick paste. Place the paste in a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle.
When the buns have risen, swipe the top of each bun with some apricot jam and then adhere your edible flowers, the sticky jam will secure the petals to the bun. Now pipe a cross on top of each bun. If your buns are lined up on the baking platter you can just pipe in one long line across the rows.
Bake the buns for about 25 minutes until they are deep golden.
Remove the buns and let cool, they are best served immediately however will stay delicious for up to 1 week if stored in an airtight container in the fridge!
Zero Waste Tips
All ingredients are easy to find without single use plastic packaging.
Can be frozen for up to 2 months.
Use compostable non-bleached baking parchment and look to reuse after initial use, compost when no longer good to use.
If you find your buns are going stale, use them in a bread and butter pudding - yum!