Easter kids' recipe for 4 - 8 people, takes only 20 mins; recipe has bread flour, fast-action dried yeast, golden caster sugar, mixed spice, ground cinnamon, milk, medium egg, butter, chocolate chip, plain flour and apricot jam.
Chocolate chip hot cross buns
Course: Easter kids
Servings
4 - 8
servings
Prep time
40 mins
Ingredients
- Milk: 250ml warm milk
- Butter: 50g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
- Plain Flour: 50g plain flour
- Ground Cinnamon: 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- Golden Caster Sugar: 50g golden caster sugar, plus 1 tsp
- Fast Action Dried Yeast: 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
- Medium Egg: 1 medium egg, beaten
- Mixed Spice: 1 tsp mixed spice
- Bread Flour: 400g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
- Chocolate Chip: 100g chocolate chip (milk or dark, whichever you prefer), or currants or raisins
- Apricot Jam: 2 tbsp apricot jam
Directions
- KIDS the writing in bold is for youADULTS the rest is for you.Mix the bun ingredients.Put the strong flour, yeast, caster sugar and 1 tsp salt in a bowl with the spices and mix. Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk, egg and butter. Start mixing with a plastic or wooden spoon and finish with your hands. If the dough is too dry, add warm water, or extra flour if it's wet.
- Now stretch the dough - this is called kneading.Knead the dough on a floured surface for 10 mins until it becomes smooth and springy. This will be a bit too much work for children, so get them to start the kneading, then when they get tired, take over.
- Leave the dough to rise until doubled in size because of the yeast.Transfer to a clean, lightly greased bowl and cover loosely with a clean, damp tea towel. Leave in a warm place to rise until roughly doubled in size - this will take about 1 hr depending on how warm the room is.
- Add the chocolate chips and do some division.Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and flatten. Scatter over the chocolate chips (or dried fruit), and knead the dough a few more times. Divide it into 8 even portions - halve the dough, then halve each portion twice more, and explain the maths.
- Roll the dough into buns.Roll each portion into a smooth round and place on a greased baking sheet in 2 rows of 4, leaving some room between each bun for it to rise. Cover with a tea towel again and leave in a warm place to prove for 20 mins, until almost doubled in size again or just touching.
- Make the crosses on the buns and bake them.Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Mix the plain flour with 1 tsp sugar and 4-5 tbsp water to give you a thick paste. Spoon into a piping bag and pipe white lines on the buns to make crosses. Bake for 20 mins until they are light brown.
- Brush them with jam if you want them to be nice and shiny.If you want to enjoy the buns untoasted, gently heat the jam in a pan or the microwave, and brush over the buns using a pastry brush. If you are going to toast them, then don't glaze them as the jam will burn.
