Baking the elusive “great AND soft” gluten-free hot cross bun

I adore hot cross buns. Yes, it is astounding how much I talk about food on a blog that is (supposedly) not a food blog. But these buns of pure contentment has pretty much everything I could ask for in a pastry.

Dried fruit is not everyone’s cup of tea, add spices and an arguably religious note to hot cross buns, and suddenly food is contentious. But this is why I love them so much. The dried fruit adds another food group, the spices combat my wheat intolerance (please, for the love of pastries, DO NOT take my word for it, this is really just me trying to justify eating half a dozen hot cross buns for tea-time), and they’re only available around Easter. When the shops put the Valentine’s chocolates on sale, I’m already keeping an eye out for my favourite buns. In the old days, I used to buy six from every shop around my house (in the first two weeks) to attain where the best ones are baked. And then I would go on a full hot cross bun binge for weeks. But things have changed….(insert the saddest puppy eyes you can imagine).

I have a very pesky wheat intolerance. To answer a couple of questions. No, I have not been tested. No, as far as I know, I’m not celiac. No, I have not altogether removed an entire food group from my diet. Yes, I am aware that many people out there think I am just full of shit.

BUT, I am very aware of how wheat makes me feel for days after I over-indulge. How much is an indulgence? This is a slippery slope for me. I can get away with a thin-crust pizza every now and again. Or maybe a pie, sometimes a slice of cake, or even a croissant. 

The problem, however, is this. Once I have a very civilised portion of wheat-based anything (and there are no side effects), the little bread-devil in my mind whispers in my ear, “Hey Charlotte, your wheat intolerance is all a hoax you invented.” I believe in the scientific method, so I have another very civilised portion. And maybe, I would still be good. But now the little bread-devil is dancing with on my conscience, so I have even more. And then my body takes awful revenge, and I feel and look dreadful for days.

Now I avoid wheat, but I still love bread. It is a problem. Especially if you eat dozens of hot cross buns just to find the perfect one. And I actually do believe the spices help a bit. I can have at least six buns before feeling crappy.

Gluten-free or wheat-free baking is true alchemy. Gluten is everything that makes bread…bread. And to try and recreate the texture and taste of gluten is not easy. Do not think you can just substitute wheat flour with gluten-free flour. Nope, no….unless you want rocks, stuff that falls apart when you look hard at it, or stuff not even the dogs want to eat. Actually, it is nearly impossible.

But this year, I wanted to try and bake my own gluten-free hot cross buns. And there are quite a few recipes out there, even one from the bread master himself, Paul Hollywood. Everything looked fine until I saw that his normal hot cross bun recipe is identical to the gluten-free one, bar the flour change. And I have enough gluten-free baking disasters to spot another mishap in the making.

I found this recipe by the Gluten Free Alchemist. It is complex. It has more ingredients than any hot cross bun in the world, and as many steps as an Inca temple. Surely, it has to work then, right??

My first attempt wasn’t that awful. I mean, the dogs still ate it. So not very bad at all. But the batter was very dry, it didn’t rise as much as it should, and it wasn’t as spicy as I like mine. The next batch on the actual Easter Friday… Well…have a look at these (insert smug hot cross-bun-stuffed face)!

Here are my tips if you want to attempt this recipe in South Africa;

• Read all her notes! It is really worth understanding why she has so many ingredients.
• Large eggs in the rest of the world are not large eggs here. In my first batch, I used three SA Large eggs. But UK Large eggs are more like our extra-large eggs (around 63-73g with the shell). I weighed the large eggs (with the shell) to get around the same weight as 3 UK Large eggs. It turned out to be 4 SA Large eggs.
• Weigh your dry ingredients. Because of the consistency of some of the ingredients, they just cannot be converted to ml.
• I used instant yeast but followed her method for the “first rise”.
• I didn’t have unsalted butter but used salted butter in the milk mix. It made no difference.
• For my first batch, I couldn’t find buckwheat flour and substituted it with white rice flour. In the second batch, I had buckwheat flour. It most definitely made a huge difference to the texture of the buns. Make the effort, I promise it’s worth it.
• I didn’t drain the orange juice from the fruit before adding them. Once again, the dough was a bit dry before adding the fruit, and the added liquid helped. In hindsight, I think I would add even more liquid.
• I added more spice (because I like my hot cross buns like I like life…full of spice – Yes, I hear it…so corny).

And my yield at the end of the day was a dozen and a half!!
I ate my buns warm from the cooling rack… with butter… without butter… standing in the kitchen… with tea… with coffee… I had a slice of well-matured cheddar with it… I added brie and figs on another…and then I had some for breakfast… and as an after-dinner treat… and even 6 days after, I had a few left. I just kept them in the fridge and reheated them as I went.

Listen…just bake these. If anything, you will feel like a super chef just completing this recipe. And these are better than the gluten-free ones sold by that large, expensive grocer.