Hot Cross Buns

The first time I had these tasty easter buns was during my time living in Australia. Coming back to Sweden, I have truly been missing them around easter time. So this year I decided to try and bake my own, pretty risky seeing as my fiancé is an Aussie baker, with tons of hot cross bun experience. But he liked them and said I nailed the flavour right on.

You will need:
1 cup Dairy Free Milk, 150 g Vegan Margarine, 50 g Fresh Yeast (5 tbs active dry yeast), ½ cup White Sugar, 4 cups Plain Flour, 1 tsp Allspice, ½ tsp Cinnamon, 1/4 tsp Nutmeg, 1/4 tsp Cloves, 1 tsp Salt, Egg Replacer equal to 3 eggs, 1 cup Sultanas and (optional) Peel of 1 cleaned Orange.
For the crosses: 4 tbs Plain Flour and 4 tbs Cold Water.
Glazing: ½ cup Water and ½ cup Sugar.

• Crumble your fresh yeast in a big bowl. Melt your margarine, add the milk and heat until body temperature (38 C / 100 F). Pour the liquid over the yeast and mix until lump free. (if using dry yeast don't worry about lumps)
• Add the sugar, salt and spices. Mix well and then add your egg recplacer (pre-mixed accoring to the directions on the packet), sultanas and peel.
• Add your flour and mix until the dough gets glossy and smooth.
• Leave in a lightly floured bowl, dust the dough with flour and cover with a clean kitchen towel.
• Leave to rise for 1½ hour.
• After rising, divide the dough into 24 equal sized round buns and place them on a oven tray with baking paper. (make sure you don't knead the dough to much, to save air in the buns)
• Cover again with the clean kitchen towel and leave to rise for another 45 minutes.
• Pre-Heat your oven to 200 C / 390 F and prepare the glaze by adding the sugar to boiling water and stirring until clear.
• Mix the flour and water for your crosses.
• Pipe the cross shape onto your buns right before baking them for 10-12 min (until golden).
• When the hot cross buns comes out of the oven brush them with your sugar glaze. This will make them shiny and sticky, a must for the hot cross buns.
• Eat them by cutting them in half and spreading with margarine.
• Very tasty! Enjoy!