These hot cross buns might be a bit pricier than the song indicates, but they’re worth every penny.
It’s Easter, which means we’re due for a long four-day weekend, lots of chocolate eggs and an endless stream of hot cross buns for breakfast, each and every day until Easter Sunday — which falls on the 17th this year. The buns, traditionally baked with dried fruit, all spice with icing piped in a cross over the top, have inspired many recipes since its inception in 14th-century England. Some follow family recipes passed down generations, and others, completely renewed takes that keep these sweet, sticky spiced buns exciting. Whatever your Easter habits may be, help yourself to a dozen or two as an excuse to indulge in the city’s freshest bakes. Or you can always point towards tradition.
Should you need some idea of where to get hot cross buns in the city, this list offers destination for those traditional bakes and others unashamedly not, just in time for the long Easter weekend.
Bakehouse
Price: HK$20 / piece
Available from: now to 18 April
You didn’t expect the hot cross buns of Gregoire Michaud from Bakehouse to be of the plain ol’ raisin-studded kind, did you? Of course not. These soft, shiny pillows are baked with a Bakehouse twist, which also means added cinnamon spice, rum, a sprinkling of orange peel and a citrusy syrupy glaze over the top to finish.
Bakehouse, various locations including 5 Staunton Street, Central, Hong Kong
Proof.
Price: HK$33 / piece
Available from: now to 30 April
Quietly brilliant artisan bakery Proof. bakes an excellent selection of home-made cakes and pastries, all of which are made from a Very Good ingredient list of unbleached flours with no preservatives, addictives, improvers and stabilisers — it’s why they’ve found a spot our our MMMs Best Pastries list. After much trailing and testing, here is their take on the Easter tradition hot cross buns: a renewed recipe of chocolate and cranberries mixed within.
Proof., 14 Tsun Yuen Street, Happy Valley, Hong Kong, +852 6542 9788
Feather & Bone
Price: HK$20 / piece
Available from: 11 to 19 April (Pre-orders open now)
Feather & Bone’s hot cross buns have earned reputation as instant sell-outs every Easter; so while you still have the chance, we’d say grab a couple more of these famous buns just for safe-keeping. Chef Mick Bolam uses a traditional home-made recipe that references to original style during Pagan times: Secret recipe dough mixed in with heaps of spices, raisins and dried fruits.
Pre-order here.
Feather & Bone, various locations including Shop LG11-22, LG/F, Lee Garden Two, 28 Yun Ping Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, +852 3529 1228
The Baker and The Bottleman
Price: HK$490 / box of 15
Available from: 11 to 18 April (Pre-orders open now)
Modern British bakery, The Baker and The Bottleman, crafts a 15-piece pan of hot cross buns that staunchly follows their commitment to premium quality bakes. Their buns are made using a rich brioche dough that has been spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and finished with a generous handful of rum raisins.
Pre-order here.
The Baker and The Bottleman, Shop No. G14 and G15, Lee Tung Avenue, 200 Queen’s Road East
Wan Chai, Hong Kong, +852 2386 8933
Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel
Price: HK$28 / piece; HK$156 / box of six
Available from: now to 18 April
Staying close to tradition, the hot cross buns from Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel are made from a pillow-soft recipe of a brioche bun base, speckled with golden raisins, golden orange zest with a light flavouring of cinnamon spice and nutmeg. Over the glossy top, the cross is piped on with zingy lemon icing — a classic.
Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel, Shop 2, Ground Floor of H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong, +852 3482 7735
Fortnum & Mason
Price: HK$54 / box of four
Available from: 13 April
You could — if you were particularly virtuose in the art of baking — make your own hot cross buns, per a can’t-go-wrong recipe from Fortnum & Mason, or just buy a ready-made pack from the British fine-foods grocers. Stuffed full with currants and flavoured with spices, these buns promises a very close bake to the traditional Easter Sunday tradition. And while you’re at it, get some of F&M signature jelly and jams to go with it. But should raisins and cinnamon feel too over done, there’s also goat cheese with honey and fig, or date, pecan and coffee for your choosing.
Preorder here.
Fortnum & Mason, Shop 022, G/F, K11 Atelier, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong, +852 3916 8181
Messina
Price: (Hot Cross Buns gelato): HK$60 / one scoop; Hot Cross Bun Sticky Snails + 1L Triple Choc Gelato Hot Tub: HK$450
If you’re getting your hot cross buns from a gelateria, you expect your bun to come with some fun — a little sweeter, perhaps. For the traditional Easter bake, Messina has remade the fluffy buns into one of their signature gelato, Hot Cross Buns — home-baked, glossy and glazed hot cross buns are crumbled, smashed then carefully churned into a creamy gelato base.
But if you prefer more bun than dessert as a nod to tradition, Messina is serving a renewed home-made hot cross buns recipe in their signature moreish style: Hot Cross Bun Sticky Snails, a spiced sticky dough laced with chocolate chips, vanilla custard and a cinnamon malt caramel top. It comes with tub of Triple Choc Gelato — you know what to do.
Gelato Messina, 37 Pottinger Street, Central, Hong Kong
The post 7 of the fluffiest hot cross buns in Hong Kong for Easter 2022 appeared first on Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong.
