Brown Butter Sourdough Hot Cross Buns – Sourdough Brandon

These Sourdough Hot Cross Buns are my take on the Easter classic, featuring rich brown butter for a deep, nutty flavor and sweet currants for a touch of natural sweetness.

Instead of traditional spices like cinnamon, brown butter adds specks of caramel flavor throughout the enriched dough. This is balanced with bright citrusy notes from fragrant orange zest and orange icing, adding fresh elements to the tangy sourdough buns.

The sourdough hot cross buns are soft, slightly chewy, and excellent to serve as a sweet breakfast or afternoon treat on Good Friday and Easter weekend, or even year-round.

This detailed recipe will walk through every step of the process and give lots of tips and photos so you can get the best results possible.

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What are Hot Cross Buns?

Hot cross buns are enriched leavened buns traditionally made with spices, dried fruit (like currants or raisins), and marked with a cross on top.

The cross is typically made from flour paste or icing and symbolizes the crucifixion in Christian tradition, dating back to 12th century England with an even longer history dating back to ancient times.

The buns are most commonly eaten on Good Friday and throughout Easter, but their soft, slightly sweet, and spiced flavor makes them a favorite beyond the holiday season.

The spices (such as cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice) represent the spices used to embalm Jesus, the round buns depict the stone rolling away from his tomb, and dried fruit like currants symbolize the fruits of the earth and nourishment. As mentioned earlier, the cross on top illustrates the crucifixion.

What makes this hot cross bun recipe different is that they are naturally leavened with sourdough starter with a long fermentation, are made with brown butter instead of spices, and are fragranced with orange zest and a bright orange icing on topp.

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See below for my tool recommendations for making these sourdough hot cross buns, including various substitutes.

• Baking Scale
  • Measuring your ingredients by weight instead of volume is essential so you get a more consistent and accurate bake.
• Stand Mixer with dough hook attachment (highly recommended)
  • If you have a stand mixer, it’ll really help bring this brioche dough better. It’s a relatively sticky dough and the stand mixer will do a lot of the hard work for you to build the gluten development for 15-20 minutes.
• 9×9 square baking pan
  • The recipe makes 16 hot cross buns that fit perfectly in a 9×9 square baking pan. However, you can use another pan or baking dish with a similar area, such as an 8×12″ oval casserole dish or a round 10″ pan.
  • If you only have an 8″ square pan, you can still make the recipe, but decrease the size of each roll to about 60-65g each so they’ll fit (you’ll have some extra dough).
  • Alternatively, for a 9×13″ baking pan, increase the amount of ingredients by 50% and make 20 buns.
• Pastry brush, for egg wash
• Piping bag with small round tip, for icing
  • If you don’t have a piping bag, cut a corner off a plastic bag and use to pipe the icing.
• Optional: Brød and Taylor Folding Bread Proofer
  • This folding proofing box by Brød & Taylor is a game changer to keep your sourdough starter and doughs at the perfect temperature while proofing.
  • The proofer folds up easily, includes a humidity tray, is multifunctional, and can even be a slow cooker.

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Ingredients Needed

See below for more information, variations, and possible substitutes.

• Unsalted butter
  • I brown the butter in this recipe for nutty, caramel flavor that will show brown specks of milk solids in the dough instead of using spices in this recipe.
  • This is a brioche dough, and just like making Sourdough Brioche Bread, you’ll want the butter to cool to room temperature so that you can incorporate it into your dough. Too hot and it’ll be greasy and too cold, it’ll take a long time to mix into the dough.
• Whole milk
• Bread Flour
  • I use King Arthur Bread Flour at 12.7% protein, which gives these buns a chewy texture and help them rise tall. The higher amount of gluten is helpful in combination with the starchy sweet potatoes to add structure, but you could use all-purpose flour if you need to.
  • If you want to make the buns even heartier, substitute about 100g with whole wheat flour.
• Salt
• Sourdough Starter
• Orange
  • I use the orange zest in the dough and orange juice for the orange icing on top.
  • Substitute with lemon or candied orange peel, which is often traditional as well.
• Eggs, plus one for egg wash
• Light brown sugar
  • Brown sugar has molasses in it, leading to a slightly sweetened bun with a little more complexity than granulated sugar. However, you can substitute with granulated sugar or an equal amount of a natural sweetener.
• Currants, or raisins
  • The most popular dried fruit for hot cross buns are zante currants (also popular in Sourdough Irish Soda Bread). They’re small and tart, so they fold and mix well into the dough. If you use raisins, you may want to chop them up slightly.
  • Another dried fruit you can substitute with would be dried cranberries, dried cherries, or chopped dates.
• Powdered sugar, for icing

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Sample Baking Schedule

This is just one baking schedule for making these buns for a brunch or afternoon treat. However, the steps are flexible, depending on your own schedule needs, environment (like temperature), and starter strength.

For example, you can extend the proofing time in the refrigerator by a couple of days

Plus, they store well, so you can make them ahead of time and reheat before serving.

If making for a holiday like Good Friday or Easter, I’d personally plan to bake them the night before or early in the morning so you can just reheat them slightly!

Steps	Time
1. Make the Levain	9:00am
2. Scald the Milk and Brown the Butter	1:00pm
2. Mix the Dough	2:00pm
3. Bulk Fermentation	2:00-8:00pm (about 6 hours at 78ºF, but can vary depending on temperature)
4. Overnight Proof	8:00pm-next day (or up to 48 hours in fridge)
5. Divide and Shape	7:00am
6. Final Proof	7:30am-11:30am (4-5 hours at 78ºF, but can vary depending on temperature)
7. Bake	11:30am

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How to Make Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

Follow this visual step-by-step guide to help make this brown butter Sourdough Hot Cross Buns recipe.

1. Make the Levain

Mix 50 grams of sourdough starter, 50 grams of bread flour, and 50 grams of room-temperature water in a clean jar.

Cover and set it in a warm location (between 75-80ºF) for about 4-5 hours until it’s bubbly and ripe. The levain should double in size during this time.

2. Scald the Milk and Make the Brown Butter

Add the milk to a small saucepan over medium heat and bring just under a boil.

Remove from the heat and set aside to cool to just warm or room temperature. Scalding the milk denatures the whey proteins and leads to a softer bread!

To brown butter, heat the stick of in a small, light-colored saucepan or skillet on medium heat. Stir frequently to prevent burning.

Continue to stir until the butter begins to foam, the milk solids start to caramelize, and it takes on a popcorn-like nutty aroma.

Remove from the heat and pour into a heat-proof bowl to cool to room temperature.

As it cools, soak the currants (or raisins) in warm water so they become plump. You can also soak them in rum, black tea, or with a teaspoon of vanilla extract for even more flavor.

3. Mix the Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, add the bread flour, salt, light brown sugar, and orange zest from one orange (reserve the rest of the orange for making the icing). Rub the orange zest into the dry ingredients to fragrance them.

Once your levain has doubled in size and the milk and brown butter have cooled to room temperature, add the milk and eggs.

Begin mixing on medium-low speed. At first, the dough will be dry and shaggy.

After a few minutes, add a tablespoon of the cooled brown butter into the mixer at a time, making sure it fully incorporates into the dough before adding in another tabelspoon.

Continue mixing until the dough becomes smooth and tacky (not sticky and wet), about 7-10 minutes. Strain the soaked currants, discard the water, and mix into the dough until evenly distributed.

Highly enriched brioche doughs like this can take a while to come together as you need to develop quite a bit of gluten to hold all of the dough ingredients together. That’s why I recommend using a high-protein flour such as King Arthur’s Bread Flour.

Add a TBS of flour at a time while mixing if your dough never smooths out and still seems wet.

4. Bulk Fermentation (First Proof)

Transfer the dough to a mixing bowl and cover for bulk fermentation, which will take about 6 hours at 78ºF.

If your dough and environment are colder, bulk fermentation will take longer. Conversely, in warmer conditions, the dough will ferment faster.

I don’t usually need to add folds to this dough, but if yours seems very slack or a little weak at the end of mixing, you can add a couple of folds separated by an hour during fermentation.

Bulk fermentation is complete when this dough has about doubled in size, is smoother, and domes in your bowl.

5. Overnight Proof

Cover the bowl and transfer the dough to the refrigerator for a cold, overnight proof and up to 48 hours.

The dough will continue to ferment slowly in the refrigerator, which helps develop flavor and allows you to bake on your own schedule.

6. Divide and Shape

Butter or grease a 9×9″ square baking pan and set aside.

Then, punch down the dough and dump it out onto a clean work surface. Weigh the total weight of the dough and divide by 16 to get equal-sized buns. Mine are typically around 75g each.

Use a bench scraper to divide the dough into 16 equal-sized pieces and lightly flour a work surface.

Next, flatten the dough into a rough square and bring the corners into the middle to create a dumpling or garlic bulb-like shape.

Turn the ball of dough over and use a lightly floured palm of your hand and the surface tension of the counter to shape the dough into a taut ball. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.

The dough may be a little stiff because it’s cold, highly enriched with butter, and filled with currants, but that’s okay.

7. Final Proof

Place the 16 balls of dough in four rows of four in the buttered baking pan.

Cover and place in a warm location for the final proof. At 78ºF, the final proof typically takes 4-5 hours, but it depends on your environment and how much the dough proofed during the first ferment.

At the end of the final proof, the dough should double in size and rise in the pan, be poofy, and feel full of air if you poke one with a floured finger.

Really give these as much time as you can since enriched doughs take longer to proof.

8. Bake

Preheat the oven to 375ºF (191ºC).

Next, beat an egg and a teaspoon of water in a small bowl and brush the egg wash onto the buns for a shiny, dark brown topping.

Bake for 26-28 minutes until the tops are beautifully golden brown. An instant-read thermometer stuck into the middle should read at least 190ºF (88ºC) when done.

Cool completely before adding the orange icing.

9. Make Orange Icing and Pipe Crosses

Add the powdered sugar to a small mixing bowl and add a tablespoon of fresh orange juice.

Stir with a spoon until you get a thick, but still pourable consistency. Add more powdered sugar if it’s too liquidy and more juice if it’s too thick.

The important part here is that your buns have cooled completely so they don’t melt your icing!

Add the orange icing to a piping bag with a small round tip. Finally, ice four thin lines down the centers of the buns and another four perpendicular lines make the crosses on top.

The icing should set after a few minutes so you can pull apart and eat!

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How to Store & Serve

These sourdough hot cross buns store well in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days.

They’re not as soft as dinner rolls like my Sourdough Dinner Rolls or Sourdough Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls, but hot cross buns are typically not as soft as other brioche-style buns due to the added includes.

They do lose some moisture over time, so I recommend reheating them slightly before serving.

Finally, you can freeze baked hot cross buns before icing in a freezer-safe bag. Thaw them in the refrigerator overnight and reheat the buns in a 300ºF (149ºC) toaster oven, toaster, or oven until warmed through. Then, ice them once they’ve cooled.

Hot cross buns are best served the day they’re made or lightly toasted with a spread of butter. They can also be enjoyed with jam, marmalade, or honey for extra sweetness.

Traditionally eaten on Good Friday, the fruit-filled buns symbolize the end of Lent, but they’re delicious any time during the Easter season—or even year-round! For a festive touch, pair them with tea or coffee for breakfast, an afternoon snack, or a cozy treat.

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