Making Hot Cross Buns

Yesterday, as Easter rapidly approaching, Chloe, Jaime and I baked Hot Cross Buns in Home Economics.

Ingredients

• Whole wheat or white flour
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Butter 
• Honey
• Cinnamon
• Raisins
• Milk

Frosting ingredients

• Icing sugar
• Milk
• Vanilla essence

The method consisted of mixing our dry ingredients together in a bowl, then incorporating the butter in until it resembled coarse breadcrumbs. 

Next came the honey, cinnamon and raisins, which we had to toss slightly, for some flavour and texture to our buns. 

The next step is to make a well in the middle of the bowl. Then you add the entirety of the milk at once, using a fork to stir it around quickly. The dough should pull away and look like a ball.

The final step is to divide the ball into smaller, even balls, but Jaime, Chloe and I divided ours into three big ones.

To bake the buns, place the balls atop a baking sheet. Use a knife to cut a deep cross through the top of each ball. 

Bake the buns at 200 degrees for 15-20 minutes. 

Ours took approximately 14 minutes to bake. 

To make the icing, in a bowl we mixed icing sugar, a small amount of milk, and a few drops of vanilla essence. Remember to be careful! The icing consistency must be thick but not runny. If you pull it up with a spoon it should run down, but not fall off the spoon. I think we nailed our icing because it delicious and a perfect consistency without needing an extra amount of any ingredients. 

Once the buns are finished baking, leave them to cool for just a few minutes if time allows. We actually had a lot of spare time so we left them for about two minutes to allow the bread to set and cool. If we were to put the icing on immediately, it would have melted down due to the high temperature of the buns.

 Now it is time to ice the hot cross buns! Using a spoon, we drizzled the icing on the buns using our cross as a guideline. It was difficult to get a perfect cross but we definitely could have done worse. 

We believe we had a really good practical lesson. Our buns were cooked perfectly on the inside - light and fluffy, and firm on the outside. 
They tasted delicious, I really liked how the cinnamon, honey and salt added flavour, as well as how the raisins added texture. 

My favourite part of the process was the icing, it had a really good consistency and sweet taste. It was also fun to drizzle it on top of the bun.