When I used to live in the UK, I never had time to make my own hot cross buns. I used to rely on the ones that you used to get in a packet of six at the supermarket which were overly sweet and tasted of stale flour and preservatives. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a bread product that keeps for at least a week isn’t going to be particularly delicious to eat, and it put me off hot cross buns in general. For a while at least…
This Easter I decided to set this right and bake some vegan hot cross buns that were fresh AND delicious. Traditionally, hot cross buns will contain eggs, milk and butter, so I replaced the egg with some applesauce (which makes them taste light and fragrant), the milk with almond milk and the butter with a little extra olive oil. The results were fantastic and there is no way that a non-vegan would ever know that these beauties contained no dairy products. I decided to break from the tradition of putting a cross on the buns, even though I realised a cross is a lot easier than many other shapes, as you can just drag the piping bag across a whole row at once. Doing a ‘V’ (to stand for vegan) required a little bit more time and individual care. I thought that this would be a useful decoration if you were bringing your hot cross buns to an Easter party and wanted it to be clear which ones were the vegan ones. Or you could just say “the ones that are really, really fluffy and delicious” 😉 .
45 g / 3 tbsp all purpose flour 60 ml / ¼ cup water
GLAZE
1 tbsp of apricot jam or orange marmalade 1 tbsp of water
GLAZE
title: “Vegan Hot Cross Buns” ShowToc: true date: “2024-10-31” author: “Lyle Deegan”
In only just a week a lot of people in the UK will be sinking their teeth into hot cross buns, which are a quintessential Easter treat in this country. While I’m not big on Easter myself, I am big on buns – always have been, always will be 😉 so I decided that it’s a perfect excuse to get baking and make a tray of indulgent vegan hot cross buns.
We (or Duncan, to be precise) have made hot x buns for this blog before, but it was a while back and the photos are pretty terrible so I’ve decided that I need to revamp them once more. These new hot cross buns are deliciously studded with lots of little pops of flavour, fragrant with spices and orange zest. As we are big ginger fiends in this house, aside from traditional sultanas (which I soaked in Amaretto to soften) I used plenty of chopped stem ginger. I love stem ginger in baking, but if you are not a fan or have trouble getting your hands on it (I hear that it isn’t as popular in other countries), feel free to sub it with dried apricots, for example. Spice-wise, traditionally allspice – the ground up berry of the West Indian allspice tree is used. Because its flavour is said to resemble a combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper, it is often replaced by and confused with mixed spice, which is simply a spice mix consisting of several spices including cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. I made up my own concoction but you are free to use whatever you enjoy and whatever you have in your pantry, remembering that spices like cloves or cardamom tend to overpower others so they, in particular, need to be used in small amounts. These buns are not hard to make – if you have kneading down pat, you’ll have no trouble. As opposed to scones, for example, they don’t require much graft as the fat isn’t added cold to the flour first, it goes in melted, at the end, with the other liquid ingredients. They are fluffy, studded with goodness, only just slightly sweet and I love them toasted with a smattering of vegan butter and some apricot jam. They make a great afternoon or morning treat if you are so inclined and Easter makes for a perfect excuse to consume some. Enjoy!
65 g / ½ cup all purpose flour water
GLAZE
1 tbsp of apricot jam OR stem ginger syrup OR maple syrup
***I used Amaretto, but you can also use orange juice.
