Chocolate Easter buns
An alternative to the traditional hot cross buns eaten on good Friday at easter time. These chocolate easter buns are delicious and great as a dessert or with a cup of tea alongside club sandwiches at afternoon tea!
Two main inspirations for these easter buns came from the memory of an event with my mum and coming across a recipe for double chocolate hot cross buns.
The memory with my mum involved my eldest son. When he was about 18 months old, we went for a visit to her house. I left him with her for a few minutes and when I returned he had chocolate smeared all over his face. I looked at him then at my mum. She then said ‘He can have chocolate right?’ (She had given him an entire chocolate hot cross bun) I told her this was his first time – my internal thoughts were sarcastically saying ‘well, too late now!’ This was quite amusing to my partner and we often talk about my mum’s antics with her grand kids, so much so that we have now made it a tradition to have chocolate hot cross buns or some variation of at easter time every year.
I was out the day before good friday looking for easter eggs or affordable chocolate treats for my sons when I walked into The Source Taupo to refill my container of cinnamon. At the counter they had recipe cards for double chocolate hot cross buns both gluten free and non-gluten free. This recipe is based onthe non-gluten free version on those recipe cards with a few changes. The main changes are the use of the type of yeast; I used active dried yeast rather than instant yeast and changed the recipe to suit the use of this change. I also, modified a few of the quantities of ingredients to make it easier for me to measure, make and use. I also, did a few things different in the method just to suit how I like to bake, for example using non-stick baking paper rather than greasing the baking pan.
Being the great experimental cook that she was, mum had lots of great ideas and techniques. She taught me that if you had a cool kitchen and wanted a warm place to prove your bread, just warm the oven a little and pop it in there – see the tips and tricks below for the details around how to do that and make sure you accidentally semi-cook your baking whilst you need it to prove.
Tips and Tricks
I used almond milk here but feel free to use any other plant based milk or dairy milk. If you have no milk, just use water – this recipe will still work.
The recipe calls for active dried yeast. Instant yeast can be used too. Just ignore the yeast blooming step, combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl (including the yeast), whisk together the wet ingredients then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients to form the dough.
Although this can be mixed by hand, to make it easier for myself, I used a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment on a low speed to combine all my ingredients and form a dough ball before giving it a quick knead by hand then allowing to the dough to rest.
If it is a particularly cold day, I like to slightly warm the oven but turning it onto bake at 50 degrees celcius for 5 minutes and then place my bread products in the oven to prove. Just make sure to hover your hand in the oven before adding your bread to prove to make sure the oven is not too hot – just a nice slight warmth on your hand is all you want.
I decided to pipe three lines on my chocolate easter buns as I am not really religious, I wanted them to look more like eggs and my son liked the idea of the buns having racing stripes!
In this recipe the cacao powder can be replaced with cocoa if that is all you have. However, I prefer it with cacao as it seems to be ever so slightly more bitter and gives more of a sense of dark chocolate in flavour.
Chocolate Easter Buns
Serves 12