Dough Products
Hot Cross Buns
Soft, enriched spiced buns full of sultanas, mixed peel and orange zest, marked with a piped flour-paste cross and brushed with warm apricot glaze straight from the oven.
- Serves 12
- Makes 12
- Hands-on 45 min
- Rise 2–3 hrs
- Bake 20 min
- Freeze for up to 1 month
- British
Method
Bring the milk (300 ml) just to the boil, take it off the heat and add the butter (50 g). Leave until it is just warm to the touch (about 40°C).
Put the flour (500 g), salt (1 tsp), sugar (75 g) and yeast (7 g) in a large bowl, keeping the salt and yeast apart. Make a well, pour in the warm milk mixture and the egg (1 egg) and mix to a sticky dough.
Knead on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes (or 6 minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook) until smooth and elastic. Put in a lightly oiled (1 tbsp) bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for 1–1½ hours until doubled in size.
Knock back the dough and knead in the sultanas (100 g), mixed peel (50 g), orange zest (1 orange), cinnamon (1 tsp) and mixed spice (1 tsp) until evenly spread. Cover and leave for another hour, or until doubled again.
Divide into 12 equal pieces (about 90 g each) and roll each into a smooth ball. Set them on a lined baking tray, about 1 cm apart, so they touch as they rise. Cover loosely and leave for 45–60 minutes until puffy. Heat the oven to 220°C (fan 200°C, gas 7).
Mix the plain flour (75 g) with about 5 tbsp water to a thick, pipeable paste. Spoon it into a piping bag with a small nozzle (or a food bag with the corner snipped) and pipe a line along each row of buns, then repeat the other way to make crosses.
Bake for 18–20 minutes on the middle shelf until deep golden; the bases sound hollow when tapped.
Warm the apricot jam (3 tbsp) with a splash of water, sieve it, and brush over the buns while they are still hot. Cool on a rack. Eat split and toasted with butter.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Rate this recipe
Tried it? Rate it.
The readers’ average appears here once 5 readers have rated it.
One vote per recipe per browser, and you can change it. We keep only the stars: no name, e-mail or IP address. How ratings work
See also
Chef’s notes
- Adding the fruit after the first rise, as Paul Hollywood does, gives the yeast a head start and a lighter bun.
- A finely chopped apple kneaded in with the fruit keeps the buns moist for longer.
- Overnight: after shaping, cover and chill the buns overnight, then let them come to room temperature for 1 hour before piping and baking.
- The buns freeze well for up to a month; toast them from frozen.
How this recipe was developed
We compared hot cross buns by Paul Hollywood on BBC Good Food, the Jamie magazine recipe on Jamie Oliver’s site, America’s Test Kitchen’s and the most-rated version on Allrecipes.
- Enriched dough. Paul Hollywood’s recipe on BBC Good Food (4.25/5 from 306 ratings) uses strong flour, warm whole milk, butter, egg and caster sugar; that is our dough.
- Fruit after the first rise. Hollywood kneads the fruit and spice in after the first rise; we follow that, with sultanas, mixed peel and orange zest.
- Flour-paste cross and apricot glaze. Hollywood pipes a flour-and-water cross and glazes with apricot jam; Allrecipes (4.6/5 from 265 ratings) and America’s Test Kitchen use an icing cross instead.
- Extra spice. The Jamie magazine recipe adds nutmeg and stem ginger; we keep cinnamon and mixed spice and give options in the notes.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- BBC Good Food (Paul Hollywood): Hot cross buns (4.25/5, 306 ratings)
- Jamie Oliver (Christina Mackenzie (Jamie magazine)): Hot cross buns (4.5/5, 2 ratings)
- America's Test Kitchen (Katie Leaird): Hot Cross Buns (4.3/5, 111 ratings)
- Allrecipes (LITSTER5): Hot Cross Buns (4.6/5, 265 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.