Nothing says Easter like the heavenly spiced fragrance of Hot Cross Buns baking in the oven & you can’t go wrong with this very easy, No Knead Hot Cross Buns recipe.
Ever made your own Hot Cross Buns at Easter?
Think it’s difficult?
Well, think again, because you are about to make No Knead Hot Cross Buns like a boss 🙌
If you have made my Easy No Knead Focaccia Bread then you will know just how good no knead bread can be. That recipe is so popular and everyone who tries it loves it.
Same goes for my No Knead Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread..Um, you can see why that’s popular….
They were both adapted from this No Knead Hot Cross Buns recipe and they are all as easy as each other.
Making the Hot Cross Bun dough is basically the same with the addition of some dried fruit, spices and nuts and you get amazing Hot Cross Buns at the end of it as a reward.
I think that’s worth a teensy weensy bit of (hardly any) effort don’t you?
I mean c’mon!? Anyone can do this.
How to make No Knead Hot Cross Buns
There are just a few steps involved in the making of these No Knead Hot Cross Buns and most of them will be you stepping away during all of the hands off time where you do not have to do a single thing.
FOR INGREDIENTS & FULL INSTRUCTIONS, SEE THE RECIPE CARD AT THE END OF THIS POST
Let’s break it down:
Step 1 (optional)
Toast your nuts (this is optional – you don’t have to use the nuts)
Step 2
Throw everything in one bowl and mix with a wooden spoon
Step 3
Cover the bowl with a damp dish towel and walk away and don’t come back for 4 – 8 hours.
See! Told you it was easy.
It will be fine for anything between those times. You do not need to babysit it.
Step 4
Come back. turn out onto a clean floured surface and cut into 10 even pieces then shape into balls and put on a baking sheet then cover with the towel again.
Make a drink and go put your feet up for 30 minutes….
Oh my goodness … this is hard work….😂
Step 5
Mix up the flour and water in a small bowl, add to a piping bag and pipe crosses on the top of each bun, then bake.
Step 6
Brush with the glaze then cool.
I’ll forgive you if you eat one at this stage.
The smell in your house while they bake will be unbelievable and when they are done, the No Knead Hot Cross Buns will be golden, shiny, soft and fluffy.
And you?
You will be pleased as punch with yourself and fighting the urge to eat the whole batch warm and slathered in my Easy Vegan Butter. That’s it in the pics above and if you haven’t made it yet this is the perfect opportunity. It takes no time at all and is the perfect accompaniment.
I hope you have a lovely Easter, full of happy baking.
Here are some more Easter recipes you might like:
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- Copycat Cadbury’s Creme Eggs
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- Hot Cross Cookes
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- Vegan Caramel Eggs
As with all of my baking recipes where precision is key to excellent results, I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to measure your ingredients, rather than using cup measurements. I love this one because it is very reasonably priced and it has a tare function which is really handy. It means you can place any bowl on the scale and reset to zero so it doesn’t include the weight in it’s calculation, plus you can reset to zero when adding multiple ingredients to the same bowl which saves on washing up!Â
No Knead Hot Cross Buns
Ingredients
For the buns
- 50g | 1/3 cup whole hazelnuts (OPTIONAL) , roughly chopped into large pieces, (optional but they add great texture and flavour)
- 500g / 3¾ cups plus 4½ teaspoons all purpose white flour , in the UK use flour labelled strong or bread flour
- 2.5 teaspoons instant or quick yeast , sometimes labelled fast yeast
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamon (OPTIONAL but adds a nice flavour)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 265g / 1½ cups mixed dried fruit , such as golden raisins, sultanas, cranberries, chopped dried apricot.
- 1 lemon Zested
- 1 orange Zested
- 80mls | 1/3 cup coconut oil or vegan butter , it MUST be at room temperature and not hot when added to the other ingredients
- 240mls | 1 cup unsweetened milk of choice
- 180mls / ¾ cup water
For the crosses
- 5 tablespoons all purpose white flour
- Enough water to make a thick pipe-able paste
For the glaze
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons boiling water
Instructions
IF USING HAZELNUTS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Pour the raw hazelnuts onto a baking tray and roast for about 10 mins. Shake the pan after 5 mins and keep an eye on them as they can burn fast. Remove them from the oven and let cool.
FOR THE HOT CROSS BUNS
In a large bowl, add the flour, yeast, spices, salt and sugar and mix together well. Then add the fruit, cooled nuts and zest.
Add the coconut oil or butter to the milk, stir, then pour into the bowl with the other ingredients. Then add the water and stir really well with a spoon until everything is combined and there is no dry flour visible. It will be a sticky lumpy looking mess. That's normal.
Cover the bowl with a clean dish towel that has been run under the tap to wet and then wrung out.
Leave on your kitchen work surface for anything from 4 - 8 hours. When you check on it it should be puffed up around double or a little larger than double and be full of small bubbles.
My kitchen is about 18°C or 64F and the dough is ready from 4 hours but I can easily leave it up to 8.
If your kitchen is significantly colder than mine, then leave it for a minimum of 6 hours but up to 8 hours.
If your kitchen is a lot warmer than mine then it will speed things up a bit. It might be ready after about 2 hours. I wouldn't leave it any longer than 4.
After the 4- 8 hours have elapsed and the dough has doubled and is puffy. dust a clean, dry, work surface with some flour and turn out the dough onto it making sure you scrape the bowl out well. Try not to tear the dough as it will damage the structure that has developed. It will be sticky but that is normal.
Dust the top of the dough with some flour and make it as round and even as you can, then cut into 10 pieces Try to do it evenly but don't worry if they are slightly different in size.
Once portioned out, shape each piece into a smooth ball using floured hands. I do this by having the ball of dough on the surface in front of me and using my hands to pull down all around, squeezing it tight underneath.
Place the buns gently on a lightly floured, or parchment lined baking sheet. Leave some space around each one so they have room to grow.
Cover with the damp dish towel from earlier and leave for a further 30 minutes then preheat the oven to 400•F
After 30 minutes has passed, make the flour and water paste for the crosses. Just add enough water to the 5 tablespoons of flour to make a thick pipe-able paste. Remove the towel from the buns, fill a piping bag or piping syringe with the paste and pipe a cross shape on each bun.
Place the buns in the preheated oven and bake for around 20 minutes. They should be starting to turn a golden brown and if you tap one on it's bottom it should sound hollow.
Remove from the oven and immediately mix up the glaze. 2 tablespoons of sugar with 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Stir until the sugar dissolves then brush the top of each bun generously.
Transfer to a cooling rack but be sure to eat one while it's still warm!
Recipe Notes
It is possible to make these hot cross buns without the oil if you wish but bear in mind that the oil gives a softer, fluffier crumb. The oil acts a bit like a preservative too and if you omit it the hot cross buns will go stale much more quickly. If you know you will be eating them quickly then this won't be a problem. If you won't eat them so quickly and you omit the oil, I would advise freezing them and just removing from the freezer as you need them. If you do omit the oil, add an extra 60mls of water to replace some of the lost liquid.Â
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DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?
If you did, be a ☆ and let me know what you think by rating it and commenting below. Tag me on Instagram too. I am @avirtualvegan and my hashtag is #avirtualveganÂ
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Maria says
hello, I just wanted to add that I had the dough resting covered under a closed window in my kitchen from midnight to 8 am next day, the dough had doubled in size and had bubble so it was perfect. So this can be done overnight if is still 8 hours and there is a cool kitchen where the dough can rest. It was way better than waking up 3 hours before breakfast or heating up day old buns. they were fluffy, soft, and delicious!
Maria says
I made this last night and baked them this morning. They were soooo goood!!! I doubled the recipe and still was great. I had to change almonds for hazelnuts and crystallized fruit for dried fruit, it would have been better with dried fruit, but besides that they were easy to make and delicious! Have you tried this with gluten free flour? I would try this next time for the ones in my family that are gluten free. Thanks for making our Easter Sunday breakfast so special. I had bough store made hot cross buns but felt bad about not having the real thing when I found your recipe and saw that I did not need to be in the kitchen for hours for this to work.
A Virtual Vegan says
That’s great Maria. I’m so glad you enjoyed them. The great thing about the recipe is that the add-ins are pretty flexible. My son likes them with chocolate chips instead of the fruit!
I haven’t tried them with gluten-free flour. I have a feeling they wouldn’t work that well because they need that gluten development. With some adaptions though they would probably be ok. I haven’t really ventured into gluten free bread baking though so it would be a case of trial and error on my part!
Celine says
Never tried hot cross buns before, so I can’t compare from the originals, but I just made those ones: and I love it!!!!
A Virtual Vegan says
Love that these are your first ever Hot Cross Buns and that you loved them! Thank you for stopping by to let me know!
Noah says
I was wandering if you could make the buns the night before and bake them for 30 minutes in the morning. However, I don’t know if the buns could wait that long to be baked. My plan was to start at 14.00 hours and then make buns around 22.00 hours and (if possible) to bake them the day after around 8 a.m.
I hope you could help me
A Virtual Vegan says
I think if you leave them that long they will over prove and you won’t get a good finished result. You can slow the whole process down by rising the dough or the shaped buns in the fridge rather than on the counter top but even then once they were shaped it might be too long. You could probably get away with making the dough at 14.00 then putting it in the fridge until the next morning then continuing from there to shape and bake. If the dough is cold, once shaped they will take a little longer to rise because the yeast will be sleepy until the dough warms up again. Not too much longer though.
Fran says
Just took a batch of these out of the oven. They are a amazing!! I just ate one and burned my tongue because they looked so good and I couldn’t wait.
A Virtual Vegan says
Ha Fran, that’s funny. So glad you like them. I end up eating them while hot too. So good! Thank you for taking the time to come back and leave feedback. It’s much appreciated!
Annie says
Hi, can I substitute a little of the flour for cocoa and add choc chips instead of fruit? It looks like it should work. And who doesn’t love choc chip hot cross buns?
A Virtual Vegan says
I haven’t tried doing this so am not sure how well it would work.There is a chance that the cocoa would impede the yeast development but I guess it depends how much is added. Some extra yeast or sugar might be necessary to give it a boost, or it might just need a little extra time. I would need to try it to know for sure. If you were to just switch the fruit for chocolate chips and not add cocoa it would definitely be ok though. I guess it depends whether you want to risk it or not. I will add chocolate hot cross buns to my list for next Easter though!
Annie says
Thanks. I might give it a try this weekend, but only adding a tablespoon of cocoa just for colour. I’ll let you know if they work?
help says
How much water do i put in the mixture?!!! it doesnt say…
A Virtual Vegan says
Oh my goodness…I’m sorry. 180mls or 3/4 cup. It’s added now!
Nikki says
Sunday 6/25/17
OMGosh I am in heaven this morning. Just downed one hot out the oven and it was delicious!!! I made this recipe minus the orange peel I didn’t have any oranges on hand, swapped the nuts for dates because in my home country we use raisins and dates and omitted the cranberries. This is my go-to for hot cross buns.
Thank you so much for this recipe!!
A Virtual Vegan says
That’s awesome Nikki! I am so glad you enjoyed them. I don’t blame you for eating one right from the oven. They are pretty hard to resist! Thanks so much for stopping to leave feedback. I appreciate it!