Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

Learn how to make sourdough hot cross buns. They are delicious, easy to make, and a great way to use your sourdough starter.

Prep Time 6 30

Cook Time 30

Servings 12 servings

80 grams sultanas You could also play around with raisins with or instead of sultanas and currants
80 grams currants
227 grams sourdough starter that you've woken up the night before
205 grams granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cardamom
320 grams plain flour

The night before you want to make the hot cross buns you’ll need to wake up your sourdough starter. If you have a sourdough starter where you follow the 1:1:1 ratio by weight-method. Then you’ll want to have 50 grams of sourdough starter + 200 grams of water + 200 grams of all purpose flour to really wake it up for the next day.

The next morning, start by putting the sultanas and currants (or raisins if you decided to use that instead) in a bowl with some lukewarm water. It will give them the opportunity to get plump and soft.

Add the sourdough starter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and spices to a bowl and mix it with a fork.
Then add 140 grams of the all purpose flour as well as the drained sultanas and currants. Either mix this by hand or use a dough whisk. I bought this Danish dough whisk about a month ago and it has made such a difference for me!
Once well mixed, add the rest of the flour and mix until well combined. I started with the dough whisk but eventually finished it off by hand. Then turn the dough out onto a floured counter and made sure to knead it for about 5 minutes. You’ll want to wet or flour your hands to make sure that the dough doesn’t stick to your hands too much.
Put the dough back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth or cling film. If you decide to use a cloth, really make sure that it is damp. A dry cloth could pull the moisture out of the dough and create a hard crust on top. I’ve had to learn that the hard way with other sourdough recipes!

Put the bowl in a warm spot and give the dough about 4 hours to rise (or until it doubles in size). I tend to put the oven on at 175 Celsius for 2 minutes. Once turned off, it will create a nice warm environment for the dough. Do be careful not to accidentally leave the oven on!
After 4 hours, punch the dough down and turn it out onto a floured counter again. Cut it into 8 pieces and form them into buns. If you prefer the buns to be smaller you could divide the dough into 10 pieces but I wouldn’t recommend going smaller than that. You’ll be able to see in the pictures that I tried to create 12 buns but most of them really turned out just a bit too small.

Place the buns into a well-greased oven pan with about 4 cm between each of them. I left a tad too much space between them and it resulted in a less tidier look when I piped the crosses on top of them. Then cover it again and allow to rise in a warm spot for another 2 hours.
After allowing the buns to rise for about 1,75 hour, it’s time to make some preparations for the baking process. Pre-heat the oven at 170 Celsius. Be careful to remove the dough from the oven if you used it as your ‘warm spot’. Mix the water and flour for the crosses and put the mixture in a zip lock or piping bag.

Once the rising time has passed, remove the cover from the oven pan. Cut a hole in the zip lock or piping bag and create the crosses by piping a straight line over each row of buns.

Next put them in the oven and bake the buns for 25-ish minutes. You want the buns to get a nice golden brown colour on top but don’t over-bake them because they could get too dry.
Right before you take the buns out of the oven, mix the ingredients for the glazing. When the buns are out of the oven, glaze them straight away.