How To Make Crosses For Your Buns - Quickly

Hot cross buns need crosses. Sure, you can make the same dough into buns without crosses, but if you want crosses, I know a quick way.

This is what I do when I need to put flour-and-water paste crosses on 12 buns or, indeed, 24 buns as I did this afternoon.

It's the method mentioned in the actual hot cross bun recipe but with extra details and pictures.

In my case, I had 24 buns to cross, dinner to cook, children to entertain and a small boy attaching clothes pegs to my apron.



For 12 buns, mix two tablespoons of plain flour with enough water to make a workable dough.


Knead the dough for a while to make it more stretchy and manageable. You can do this in mid-air, just between your two hands, stretching and folding the dough until it becomes smoother.

Place the smooth dough onto the work surface and shape it into a square or rectangle.


Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to few millimetres thin, keeping enough thickness to make it easy to work with. Don't worry how large the piece is but do keep the corners squarish.

Here, I am remembering how tricky it is to photograph dough on pale worktops(!)


Use a sharp knife to slice the dough in half, and then each half in half again, cutting enough strips for one per bun. Here, I am aiming for 24 strips because I'd made a double batch of buns.


Once you've got the requisite number of strips, cut across the middle, so that you make double the number: two pieces per bun.


At this point, leave it for a few minutes. Letting the dough rest gives it an opportunity to relax and become stretchier. This will be useful next.

When you return to the dough and peel each piece off the worktop, it will easily stretch to become long enough to lay across the bun.


Simply place the crosses on the buns. There's no need to use any water or suchlike as 'glue'. You can do this at any point before the buns go in the oven. These doughy crosses will grow with the bread as it proves and rises.



With this method, you can have all your buns crossed in a matter of minutes.


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1 comment:

  1. Most of us will just have to try to manage without the pegs holding the apron down.....

    ReplyDelete

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