Sourdough Hot Cross Buns Recipe {with a discard option}

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns are an essential part of Easter fare. Well they are in our household!

This sourdough hot cross buns recipe is sure to become an Easter tradition in your home (along with these sourdough Easter recipes).

This recipe has an option for using a fed and active sourdough starter (naturally leavened) or using sourdough discard and some commercial yeast.

Hot Cross Buns are somewhat of a discussion point in our house - some like them with chocolate chips, others like a more brioche version. Me?

I like a good old fashioned Easter bun stuffed with mixed fruit - including mixed peel (yes I know it's a bit old school).

The great news is that by making sourdough hot cross buns yourself, you get to be in charge of what goes into them - and what stays out!

I've even added some delicious flavor variations in this post - you'll find instructions for making chocolate sourdough hot cross buns as well as lemon and blueberry and a few other surprises!

And if you want something a little different, why not try these sourdough hot cross cookies!

How To Make Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

These sourdough hot cross buns are fairly simple to put together. They use simple techniques to create a soft, spiced bun.

Perhaps the hardest part is actually bringing the dough together, although if you have a stand mixer, this will really help!

Here's how to make sourdough hot cross buns:

1. Add the cinnamon to the softened butter and set aside.
   
2. Add the dried fruit to a bowl and cover with hot water to soften and plump up. Set both of these aside for use further into the process.
   
3. Add warm milk, starter, bread flour, sugar, salt, vanilla and eggs to the mixer bowl. Bring the ingredients together to form a rough dough.
   
4. Knead the hot cross bun dough until it forms a fairly smooth dough. It doesn't have to be super smooth just yet, but you would need to knead for around 3 - 6 minutes in a mixer). Let the dough rest where it is for around half an hour.
   
5. Now, start your mixer and add the cinnamon butter a little at a time. Around 10-15g at a time is fine. Allow the mixer to knead the butter in the bowl before adding more. Once all the butter is added, knead the dough until it's smooth and shiny.
   
6. Let the dough rest where it is for around half an hour.
   
7. Now, drain the dried fruit and gently squeeze out the excess moisture.
   
8. Now there are two options here. You can add the fruit to your dough and knead it through in your mixer. This will chop up some of the fruit (not all). If you would prefer more whole pieces you can knead it through by hand on the counter. Either way is fine and will not affect the rise of the buns at all.Try not to over knead here - you want to just combine the fruit through the dough.
   
9. Once the fruit has been kneaded through, form the dough into a ball and pop into a bowl to bulk ferment.
   
10. Once the dough has finished bulk fermentation it will have risen to double and be soft and pillowy.
    
11. Turn the dough out onto the counter (don't add extra flour to the counter at this point).
    
12. This dough will be enough for 12 generous sized hot cross buns or 18 smaller buns.Shape each piece into a ball (see recipe notes above for full instructions).Place the balls of dough onto a tray.
    
13. Once your buns are shaped, you need to let them rise again in the tray. Set them aside, covered with a tea towel, to plump up and fill the tray. This will take a few hours.
    
14. Before you bake your buns, you'll want to pipe a cross on each one.Take the flour and water and mix together to form a smooth paste (like pancake batter). You can pop this into a piping bag or a ziploc bag with the corner cut off. Pipe a cross onto each bun.
    
15. Now it's time to bake your buns. Place them into an oven preheated to 180C/350F for around 22 minutes or until the buns are golden (but still soft).
    
16. Mix the jam and butter together in a small dish. You can microwave them a little to soften up if you need to. Use a pastry brush to paint the apricot glaze onto the hot cross buns as soon as they're out of the oven.
    
17. Allow them to soak it all in before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns Ingredient Notes & Substitutions

As always, you can make this recipe your own by making a few substitutions.

• I have used a selection of chopped dried apricots, dried blueberries, raisins and candied orange peel. You can use whatever fruit you would like. Traditional Hot Cross Buns do have mixed citrus peel, but not everyone loves it - and I know my kids are not the biggest fans).

• Instead of dried fruit you could substitute chocolate chips (or see the recipe variation for Chocolate Sourdough Hot Cross Buns further down.

• You can add some honey, vanilla or maple syrup to the hot water when soaking your fruit for extra taste. You could even skip the water and use orange juice.

• This recipe uses a small amount of cinnamon. Cinnamon slows down the rise of sourdough and thus if you use too much you will inhibit all that lovely wild yeast. If you want more of a cinnamon hit consider adding some to the apricot glaze at the end.

• You don't have to pipe the crosses on - in fact you can leave them off (they really are only a decoration). To be honest, we make these anytime so often choose to leave the crosses off.

• If you are going to pipe the crosses, the flour & water mixtures needs to be quite thick to stop it bleeding. As you can see mine aren't perfect - but they are made with love!

Kneading The Dough

I choose to use a stand mixer for this recipe (I actually use a Thermomix). This recipe can be made by hand, however I choose to use a mixer because it enables me to knead the dough faster and I get a smoother, more elastic dough).

You can definitely knead this by hand - it will work. Follow the recipe exactly the same way, just knead the dough by hand rather than in a mixer.

Get your muscles pumping though! It will take a good, hard knead to get the butter mixed through the dough and for the gluten to fully develop and bring the dough together.

You might find that it's really sticky to begin with - that's ok. Just keep going!

Shaping Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

There are a few options when it comes to shaping sourdough hot cross buns.

The basic shape remains the same no matter what option you choose.

To shape a sourdough hot cross bun you need to do the following:

• Weigh your dough overall and then divide that weight by how many buns you want. So if your dough is 950g and you want 12 buns, make each bun 79g. If you want smaller buns, you could make 16 buns at 59g. Just divide the total dough weight by the number of buns you'd like.

• Divide your dough into 12 pieces.

• Take each piece and gently pinch the dough into the centre forming a ball. Use your hands to tension each ball (like you're shaping a boule).

• Arrange the sourdough hot cross buns on a tray (see notes below).

You can shape them and arrange them just touching in a deep tray.

This will give you buns that are joined together when they come out of the oven. You often see hot cross buns sold like this in the store. They are "tear and share" style, similar to these soft Hawaiian Buns.

If you prefer individual buns, you can shape them and arrange them further apart on a flat baking tray. This will mean that they will bake in a more rounded shape and be separated, rather than conjoined, once baked.

Using Sourdough Discard

Want to make these Easter treats in a hurry? You can use unfed sourdough starter (sourdough discard) and add 7g of instant yeast with the warm milk.

The commercial yeast will allow these Easter buns to rise much faster than traditional sourdough yeast. You will still get some sourdough flavor, but not the depth of flavor you would by letting them rise slowly.

But this is a great way to use up some sourdough discard and have these delicious treats on the table much quicker!

If you use commercial yeast, your bulk ferment will happen much faster (generally just an hour) so be careful not to over do the first rise.

Flavor Variations For Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

If you're looking for a little flavor twist to spice up your Easter, try some of these flavor ideas!

Chocolate Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

To make Chocolate Sourdough Hot Cross Buns, add 20g of cocoa powder and replace the mixed dried fruit with your choice of chocolate chips (white, dark, milk or even a combination of all 3). Instead of piping on the crosses before you bake the buns, brush them with egg wash and then once cooled, pipe on crosses using a white chocolate frosting.

You could even use this chocolate sourdough starter for even more chocolately goodness.

Lemon Blueberry Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

Replace the mixed dried fruit with 140g of dried blueberries. Do not pipe on the crosses before baking. Brush with egg wash and bake and then once cool, pipe on the crosses using the following lemon frosting (squeeze a whole lemon into 120g of powdered sugar until it forms a thick frosting).

Raspberry White Chocolate Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

This decadent flavor combination is one of my favorites!

Replace the mixed dried fruit with 100g of freeze dried raspberries and 100g of white chocolate chips. Do not pipe on crosses before baking. Brush with egg wash and bake and then once cool, pipe the crosses on with this Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.

Freezing & Freshness

This sourdough hot cross buns recipe is best eaten the day of making. In fact, they are at their best fresh out of the oven. Allow them cool for around 45 mins to an hour and then break them open and enjoy!

If you have some left over after 24 hours of baking, you can microwave them to restore some "just baked softness".

They are suitable for freezing. Once they have cooled down, wrap in foil and place into a large ziploc bag. Do not separate joined hot cross buns. Freeze for up to 3 months.

When you want to eat them, defrost and then place into a warm oven (still wrapped in foil) to refresh them.

More Easter Sourdough Recipes

If you love these sourdough hot cross buns, you might like to try these recipes:

• Looking for an easy sourdough fruit bread - you'll love this sourdough fruit loaf recipe!

• These sourdough iced buns are perfect for Easter celebrations!

• Fluffy Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls make a lovely Easter gift!

• This easy sourdough brioche loaf makes the perfect Easter breakfast alternative to hot cross buns.

Share the sourdough love!