Gluten-Free Hot Cross Buns #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

Libby Klein Being the baker of the family, holidays always revolve around food for me. I've hosted almost every holiday meal for the past thirty-five years. My love affair with bread means every holiday has a special doughy counterpart. For Easter, it has to be Hot Cross Buns. I like mine a little heavy on the spice - especially the cloves. After all, this isn't just gluten-free raisin bread. Although, I really like that too. The finished rolls will be soft and pillowy and you won't be disappointed. I've been working on this recipe for years now, and I'm amazed with my latest results. I feel I need to apologize to anyone who made this recipe in Beauty Expos Are Murder as part of my Afternoon Tea collection. They have been greatly improved and they were really good before. I like to make these into chicken salad sandwiches - without the icing crosses.

Gluten-Free Hot Cross Buns

Makes 12-18 buns

 

This recipe takes two days to complete.

INGREDIENTS

 

1 cup whole milk, slightly warm

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon yeast

 

3 cup gluten-free flour blend*

*2 teaspoons xanthan gum (if not already in your flour blend)

¼ cup nonfat dry milk

1 ½ teaspoons psyllium husk powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

OR – you can substitute everything in red with 2 ½ cups All-purpose flour if you are not making the recipe gluten-free

 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon cloves

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Zest from one orange

½ cup sugar

½ teaspoon kosher salt

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

6 Tablespoons butter that is a little soft but still cold

 

Day 2 ingredients

1 cup Mixed Raisins

1 large egg mixed with 1 Tablespoon of water for an egg wash

 

Icing for the crosses

1 cup confectioners sugar

½ teaspoon clear vanilla - optional

Pinch salt

4 teaspoons milk or water

 

DIRECTIONS

Day 1

Warm your milk and add the tablespoon of sugar and yeast. Stir together and set aside to bloom.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, measure the flour blend, xanthan gum if you’re adding it, nonfat dry milk, psyllium husk powder, baking powder, spices, orange zest, sugar, and salt. Whisk to combine.

Add the eggs, followed by the yeast/milk mixture, and the vanilla extract. Mix on medium-high. Add the butter one tablespoon at a time until it is completely incorporated into the dough. Your butter should be firm enough to pick up with your fingers without squishing all over the place, but not so firm and cold that it stays in a lump in the mixer and won’t disappear into the dough. If it’s too cold, zap it in the microwave for 5 seconds.

Dough will be sticky and stretchy, more like a stretchy batter than bread dough. Don’t panic – it’s normal.

Cover your mixing bowl tightly with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator overnight.

 

Day 2

Cover your raisins with water in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and microwave for 90 seconds. Leave the bowl in the microwave to steam the raisins for 10 minutes. Drain the water off, and set the raisins aside to cool.

Boil a kettle of water.

Remove the dough from the fridge and flatten it with your hands on a Very well-floured surface. The dough is very sticky so you might end up adding as much as another ½ cup of gluten-free flour before this process is finished. Once you have a flat disc, use your hands to brush the excess flour from the top of the dough.

Sprinkle the top of the flattened dough with your rehydrated raisins. Knead it until smooth and the raisins are incorporated. You may have to be generous with your flour so it doesn’t stick.

Divide the dough into equal parts and roll into balls. Place on a parchment lined sheet pan. Put the sheetpan in a cold oven with a 9x13 pan of steaming, just boiled water underneath. Allow the buns to rise until doubled in size. This will take about 90 minutes.

Remove the pan from proofing, and Preheat the oven to 350° F. Gently brush the top of the buns with egg wash. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a probe thermometer reads 200° F in the center of the buns.

Allow them to cool for 10 minutes before icing. 

To make the icing crosses, mix half the milk into the confectioner's sugar with the pinch of salt and the vanilla. Add milk a little at a time until you get a thick paste. You want it to run off the spoon in a slow ribbon. If it’s too thin the icing crosses will run all over.

Move the buns next to each other so they are touching. Hold a spoon of icing above the buns and let the icing run off the spoon in  slow ribbon. Move the ribbon down the buns without touching them to cover each one in a line of white. Now make another ribbon in the opposite direction.

 

These are best the first two days while they are fresh.

 

Recipe inspiration from Let Them Eat Gluten-Free Cake

 

B&B owner and gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister, along with her saucy Aunt Ginny, is on the case at the annual Cold Spring Village antique show in Libby Klein’s seventh deliciously witty, paleo-themed Poppy McAllister Mystery.
 

When vintage items go up for auction, gluten-free baker and B&B owner Poppy McAllister discovers some people will pay the ultimate price...
 
It’s peak summer season at the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, with tourists fluttering in and out and wreaking enough havoc to rival a Jersey Shore hurricane. Also back in town is Courtney Whipple and his family of antique dealers for the annual Cold Spring Village antique show. Courtney’s son Auggie has a unique piece he believes will fetch them a fortune if he can get it authenticated in time—a piece rival dealer Grover Prickle insists was stolen from his store.
 
Poppy and her Aunt Ginny attend the auction, hoping to bid on an armoire for the B&B, and discover a veritable armory for sale—everything from ancient blades and nineteenth century guns to such potential killing devices as knitting needles and a blacksmith hammer. Strangely, they don’t see either Auggie or Grover—or the mysterious item they both claim to own. Then during the auction, a body falls out of the very armoire Poppy was hoping to acquire, stabbed through the heart. Now, surrounded by competitive dealers and makeshift weapons, she must find out who turned the auction house into a slaughterhouse…
 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/