Easter Hot Cross Buns

Photo: ping

Ingredients

Dough:

2 eggs plus enough water to get 1 ⅓ cups

4 ozs / 1 sticks butter (melted, I just zapped mine in the microwave)

4 cups bread flour

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons quick active yeast

1 cup dried currants

1/2 tablespoon orange zest

Egg Wash:

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon cold water

Orange Icing:

1/2 cup icing sugar

1/4 tablespoon orange juice

1 drops orange oil

Preparation

Plonk dough ingredients in your bread machine in the order they are listed except for the currants and the zest, which are to be added 10 mins before the final kneading cycle ends.

Use dough/manual cycle. This should include the first rising.

Punch down and remove dough from bread machine pan.

With floured hands, knead a little to remove the air bubbles.

Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces, shape into balls and place on oiled baking tray. You can also put them in muffin tins, which I did for some of mine, except they turned out looking like muffins instead of a roll/bun.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 45 mins - 1 hour or until doubled in size. Brush with egg wash and bake in a 180ºC oven for 10 - 20 mins.

Cover the top with aluminum foil after 15 mins into the baking to prevent over-browning.

Cool and pipe orange icing over the top.

PS: It's good toasted too but leave out the icing if you intend to do that.