Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

Jamaican Easter Buns are typically made with baking powder instead of yeast. Last year when I saw these Sourdough Easter Buns I knew I wanted to make them this year. I almost forgot about them though - I didn't remember until I did a search for Easter buns on my blog and came across this post. Somehow Sourdough Easter Buns turned into Sourdough Hot Cross buns and these came out of my oven at 12:01 AM on Good Friday.

I used a sourdough hot cross bun recipe that I found here but made a couple changes. I used a tablespoon of 166% starter instead of the teaspoon suggested. I think his starter may be at 100% hydration.. I autolysed for 30 minutes before adding salt, spices and raisins. If I do this again, I want to make additional changes. I would autolyse add the salt and maybe the spices (I'm not sure about that just yet) and after the bulk ferment I'd fold the fruit into the dough. I think I could also fold the spices in at this time. It just seemed too difficult to properly mix in the raisins. I think folding them in would have been a lot better. I know that the spices can retard the dough so there'd be better gluten formation and rising if I waited.

The dough wasn't difficult to handle though. It was obviously well hydrated but it didn't stick to my hands. It's hard to explain but it looked more sticky than it really was. I also used less than half of the fruit specified in the recipe because I don't like a lot of fruit in my buns.

My final change was to let the dough proof at room temperature when I removed it from the fridge. My buns didn't seem to rise at all in the fridge and I am not sure if they were supposed to. I did ask someone else who made the recipe and he said his buns had risen during refrigeration so he simply allowed them to come to room temperature and then baked them. It's possible that my buns would have risen in the oven but I felt more comfortable proofing them. I actually got caught up in work and forgot about them for a bit.I think I may have left them out for 4 hours. They were puffy when I got to them. So I rushed through putting the crosses on them so that I could get them in the oven. I didn't bother to get a piping bag. I just used a spoon to quickly drag the flour paste over them so they're not perfect.

 Not the best crumb pic but this was days later when I remembered that I hadn't snapped a pic and was just about to stuff it into my mouth.

I love these buns! I think I will be using the recipe as a base to make regular rolls in the future. Hope you had a great Easter!
I'll be submitting this to Yeastspotting.