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Dessert

Hot Cross Buns

A yeasted sweet bun flavored with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, topped with a sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hot Cross Buns

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour in a basin.

  2. Break in the eggs and add the yeast.

  3. Mix with a little tepid water to form a thin batter.

  4. Cover and let it stand overnight.

  5. The next morning, mix in the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.

  6. Add enough flour to prevent sticking.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into 2-ounce pieces and shape into buns.

  2. Mark a cross on top of each bun and let them prove for 1 hour.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes.

  4. Glaze the tops with a mixture of sugar and water.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the buns their structure.
Eggs
Add richness, moisture and structure to the enriched dough.
Yeast
Produces gas during the overnight rest and proof, making the buns rise.
Salt butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Overnight rest of the batter. The thin yeast batter must rest long enough for the yeast to ferment and build flavour and gas. Too short a rest leaves the dough flat and under-flavoured before the spices and sugar are added.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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