This recipe originally comes from the Delicious Magazine website.

Ingredients

425g strong plain white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

½ tsp salt

50g butter, softened

7g sachet easy-blend fast-action yeast

1 tsp ground cinnamon

25g light muscovado sugar

1 eating apple, cored and finely diced (I used a Pink Lady apple)

150g dried cranberries

125ml milk, plus extra for brushing

400g natural colour marzipan

Method

1. Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it in until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the yeast, then add all the remaining ingredients except the milk and marzipan.

2. Pour the milk into a jug and add 125ml boiling water. Stir into the dough and mix well until it gathers into a soft ball.

3. Turn the mixture out onto a floured work surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Cut off about 75g marzipan and reserve to make the crosses. Cut the remaining marzipan into twenty four 1cm cubes. Form the dough into a fat sausage and cut into 12 slices, cut each slice in half and place a piece of marzipan in the centre of each and pinch the dough around it. Roll into a ball and place on a baking tray.

4. Roll out the reserved marzipan into tiny thin sausages and use to make crosses on the buns. Cover loosely with cling film. Leave in a warm place, for about an hour, until doubled in size and the dough feels very light and airy.

5. Preheat the oven to 200C/fan180c/gas 6. When ready to bake, brush the top of the risen buns with milk. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden brown.

Enjoy – Happy Easter!

The post Cinnamon and apple hot cross buns with marzipan appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

This recipe is another from Tom’s mum and it is really simple, but as with all hot cross bun recipes it does take a lot of time. But it is well worth it to have freshly made hot cross buns and Easter and they will make your kitchen smell amazing!

Ingredients

340g/12oz strong white bread flour
55g/2oz light muscovado sugar (I used dark because, as usual, I realised I didn’t have any!)
2tsp mixed spice
Half a tsp of grated nutmeg
Half a tsp salt
2 packets easyblend yeast
55g/2oz sultanas
55g/2oz mixed peel
6fl oz warm milk and water mixed (I used about 4 fl oz of milk and topped with boiling water)
1 egg, beaten
55g/2oz melted butter

Method

1. Put all of the dry ingredients and fruit into a bowl and mix well.

2. Add all of the wet ingredients and mix well – the mixture will be sticky! Cover and set to rise for about 2 hours in a warm place (as it rises you’ll hear it sound like Rice Krispies when you’ve just poured the milk on!)

3. Turn out the dough and knead, before dividing into 12 and shaping into buns. Cut crosses in the top and place on a baking sheet and leave to rise again for about 40-50 minutes.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 425F/220C/Gas mark 7 for 20-25 minutes, but keep an eye on them because mine cooked rather quickly!

5. Whilst still warm, glaze the buns with 1tbsp sugar dissolved in 1tbsp warm milk. Put the kettle on and enjoy whilst they’re warm!

Now, you may be wondering why my buns have weird shapes on…well, I found a really cool thing on pinterest about making bunny bread and I had an idea that I could try it with hot cross buns – to make hot cross bunnies! But it didn’t quite go to plan and I think they look more like hot cross stegosauruses…but they taste good! The bunny bread looks like this:

Mine looked like this when I made the ears:

Maybe it was the fruit in the buns that made it difficult?! I don’t know…will have to try another time! Whether you make hot cross buns or try your own hot cross bunnies, I hope you have a very Happy Easter!

The post Hot Cross Buns appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.