Belizean hot cross buns are a Belizean tradition at Easter time, eaten on Good Friday and marked with the cross on top (source). The bun is not exclusive to Belize and turns up across the United Kingdom, Ireland and elsewhere (source). Belizeans everywhere have their favorite recipe. If you can make Belizean flour tortillas you can make these buns.
This is a yeast dough, not a baking-powder one. This recipe uses approximately 1.5 pounds of flour. And makes about 24 to 28 small buns. Which is enough buns for my small family.
KitchenAid Classic Series 4.5 Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer K45SS, White
For batches that need real volume, wedding fruit cake or double-batch bread, a tilt-head stand mixer is the lifetime tool. Belizean celebration baking assumes this kind of capacity.
Belizean Hot Cross Buns Recipe Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons (18 g) instant dry yeast
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) lukewarm water
- 1 teaspoon (4 g) white cane sugar
- 1/2 stick butter (57 g), softened or blue bonnet margarine
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup (100 to 150 g) sugar, white or brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons (5 g) ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon (0.5 g) ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon (1 g) ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 1 cup (240 ml) milk, heated until very hot (evaporated milk or coconut milk can be used)
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 4 to 4 1/2 cups (480 to 540 g) bread flour
- 1 cup (150 g) raisins and 1/4 cup (40 g) mixed peel, soaked in hot water or Caribbean rum
- Optional, for the shiny glaze instead of egg white: 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar boiled with 1/4 cup (60 ml) water
Icing Ingredients:
- 1 cup (120 g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 ml) milk
- 1/4 teaspoon (1 ml) vanilla
Instructions:
Step 1: Prepare the Yeast
- In a small mixing bowl, mix the yeast in lukewarm water with sugar and let rise for 10 minutes.
- If the yeast turns bubbly and frothy, it is working. If not, start over.
Step 2: Mix the Dough
- In a large mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.
- Stir scalded milk into the butter mixture and let it cool until lukewarm.
- Add the yeast mixture and eggs, lightly beaten.
- Gradually beat in 3 1/2 to 4 cups flour or enough to make a soft dough, and incorporate raisins and mixed peel.
- Knead the dough for 10 minutes until it is soft and elastic. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky.
Step 3: Let the Dough Rise
- Lightly butter the top of the dough and let it rise, covered in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours or until it is double in bulk.
Step 4: Shape and Bake the Buns
- Punch down the dough and cut off pieces that are large enough to shape into balls about 2″ in diameter.
- Arrange the balls on a buttered baking sheet so they touch one another and let them rise, covered in a warm place, for about 45 minutes or until they are double in bulk.
- With the blunt edge of a knife, mark each bun with a cross, and brush the buns with an egg white lightly beaten. (optional)
- Bake the buns for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden and transfer them to a cooling rack. Oven Temp at 400 F or 200 C.
- Glaze while still warm with hot syrup.
Step 5: Prepare the Icing
- In a small bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, sifted, 1 tablespoon of milk, and vanilla.
- Drizzle the glaze over the buns, forming a cross, while they are still slightly warm.
Notes:
- This recipe yields approximately 24-28 small buns.
- For bigger buns, use more dough to make 4-inch balls in diameter.
- For a shiny glaze, use the hot syrup after the buns are baked instead of brushing them with egg whites.
Storage and Make-Ahead
Baked buns keep three days in a bread bag or airtight container at room temperature. The butter and the milk keep them soft longer than a lean dough would. Do not refrigerate them, because the fridge stales enriched dough faster than the counter does.
They freeze for three months. Cool completely, ice them or not as you prefer, wrap each one and freeze with the air pressed out. Thaw an hour at room temperature and warm through at 300°F (150°C) for 5 to 8 minutes.
Good Friday morning is easier if the dough goes in the fridge overnight. Do the first rise, punch down, cover and refrigerate. Shape cold the next morning and give the second rise 60 to 75 minutes instead of 45. Ice them the day you serve them, since icing goes tacky overnight.
Equipment
A stand mixer with a dough hook does the 10 minutes of kneading in 6 to 8 on low. By hand is fine, and this is a smaller dough than the Belizean bun recipe, so it is less work.
One or two baking sheets. The buns are meant to touch each other on the tray, which is what gives them their soft sides and square shoulders.
A kitchen scale is the difference between 4 cups of flour and 4 1/2. Scooped flour varies by up to 20 percent, and in a dough this size that is most of a cup.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Belizean hot cross buns?
A sweet yeast bun with raisins and mixed peel, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, marked with a cross and eaten on Good Friday (source). Belizean versions are usually glazed with hot syrup or drizzled with icing rather than left plain.
Is this recipe made with yeast or baking powder?
Yeast. Two tablespoons of instant dry yeast, proofed in lukewarm water, with two rises. There is no baking powder in this dough. A baking-powder bun is a different thing entirely, closer to our Belizean powder buns.
What is the difference between a hot cross bun and a Belizean Creole bun?
The cross and the occasion. The Creole bun is a bigger, coconut-milk bun eaten year round with no cross on it. Hot cross buns are smaller, baked touching on the tray, marked with a cross and eaten at Easter.
Do I have to make the cross with icing?
No. Score it with the blunt edge of a knife before the buns go in the oven and that alone gives you the cross. The icing drizzle is what most Belizean bakers add on top of it. A piped flour-and-water paste, which is the British method, is not how these are made here.
Why did my buns come out dense?
Too much flour, or milk that was still hot when the yeast went in. Stop adding flour once the dough is soft and only slightly tacky, and let the scalded milk cool to lukewarm first. A rushed second rise does it too, so wait for the buns to double.
Can I leave out the mixed peel?
Yes. Use a full 1 1/4 cups (190 g) of raisins instead, or currants. Soak them either way, because dry fruit pulls moisture out of the dough around it and leaves hard spots.
How many buns does this make, and how do I scale it?
Twenty-four to twenty-eight small buns from about 1.5 pounds of flour, at 2 inches across. Shape them at 4 inches instead and you get roughly half as many. Everything halves cleanly, yeast included.
Did you enjoy this recipe? You may also enjoy our other Belizean baking recipes and our traditional Belizean Bun Recipe or Belizean Powder Buns.
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About Isela Post
Isela is a Belizean mother who has been cooking from memory and from markets her whole life. Her recipes carry the food of the Yucatec Maya tradition, the corner store ingredients of daily Belizean life, and the party table of every celebration she has ever fed people at. She writes for the Belize News Post.
