Mary Berry's Hot Cross Buns

Ain't got none unless you got buns, hun.

It wasn't even close to Easter, but I was craving a delicious hot cross bun and wanted to create some at home.

I used the legendary Mary Berry's recipe for these luxurious buns and not gonna lie – I completely screwed up the first batch. The dough did not rise and was overly dense. I was so disappointed and let down at how appalling the dough felt and looked. There were tears and a few meltdowns. So I tried again the same day.

Where did I go wrong?

Firstly, I don't think I warmed up the milk to the correct temperature – it was too cold. Secondly, the BBC Food recipe states that you 'may not need all of the milk'. This is false. You do need all of the milk. So given this instruction, I didn't use all of the milk and therefore my dough wasn't moist enough and become a hard lump of sadness!!

I spent a total of seven (7) hours attempting these buns. But would you just look at them? This was the second batch!!!

My tips for making these buns

I used the recipe on the BBC Good Food website, but there are a couple of things that this recipe doesn't mention.

1. I did some more research on hot cross buns after the first screw up and came across a Youtube Tutorial by Mary Berry herself. It turns out that Mary rose her dough twice before shaping and baking them. The recipe on BBC Good Food's website didn't say to do a double rise – I can assure you that a double rise is necessary.

2. You don't need proofing bags to let your buns rise. I used cling film and this worked perfectly fine.

3. The recipe calls for using golden syrup as a glaze. Instead, I baked my buns until they were slightly baked on top (approx. 3 minutes) and no longer soft and dough-y. I then took them out of the oven very quickly and glazed them with egg. They tasted just as delicious!

If you want to make these delicious buns, I strongly suggest you acquire some patience. Rising the dough takes about 3.5 hours altogether!!!

Nevertheless, they were absolutely worth the patience, tears, and meltdown.

Thank you Mary Berry x