Recipes & Food

Banting Hot Cross Buns

April 4, 2015

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are blessed and get to spend time with your loved ones! Not only do I get Easter, I now get to do it twice over, since I’m dating a Greek. The Greek Easter falls on a different day (next Sunday), except for every 4th year when our Easters fall on the same day.

It dawned on me then, that not only do I get 2 Easters, but I get 2 Easters where I don’t get to eat chocolate eggs or have hot cross buns. It’s certainly a life choice I’ve made, but I just found the irony hilarious (and not so funny too.)

I’m doing so well on my no refined sugar lifestyle and I hardly have any cravings anymore, which is some miracle for me. Sure, I would love to eat a marshmallow egg or those white eggs, but it’s also OK that I don’t and I don’t have that feeling of missing out. Maybe next year when I have my sugar addiction completely under control, I can indulge a little.

I love hot cross buns. I love toasting them and spreading a little butter on or eating them just as they are, so when I found The Banting Blondes recipe for Hot Cross Buns I got so excited. Now I don’t have to have Easter FOMO.

I discovered the recipe at about 16h45 on Saturday and rushed to the store before it closed, to get some of the ingredients I didn’t have at home.

You can click here for the recipe or continue reading.

Typically, the store didn’t have some of the ingredients I needed and since it was too late to go to another store, I adapted it slightly, purely based on the ingredients I had and had run out of.

Here is their recipe and my adaptation is in (italics and brackets.)

Candied Ginger:

1 fresh ginger root (I couldn’t find a ginger root, so I got the tub of Woolworths Crushed ginger.)

¼ cup boiling water

¼ cup xylitol

2 tsp cinnamon

Buns:

1&1/2 cups almond flour

1& 1/2 cups coconut flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp nutmeg

3 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup xylitol

250g butter grass-fed butter (room temperature so that it is easy to work with)

250g fresh organic blueberries (I couldn’t find any, so I left them out, but I can imagine how delicious they must be.)

6 free-range organic eggs

Cross on the Bun:

2 tbsp coconut flour

4 tbsp water

(I ran out of coconut flour – I only had enough for the buns) so I guess mine are just Hot Cross Buns

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to and 180° line the muffin tray with the muffin cases. (I used my muffin silicone cups – genius little things)

2. First start by preparing the Candied Ginger. Remove the skin off the ginger and cut into small pieces. (Mine was crushed already, but I suggest you rather use the root cut into tiny pieces.)

3. Place a small pot on the stove and add your boiling water and xylitol. Allow the xylitol to melt completely and then add ginger pieces and cinnamon. Bring to the boil and reduce heat. Stir in-between. Repeat about four times until all the xylitol syrup has been absorbed. (As I had the crushed fresh ginger it turned into more of a paste.)

4. Now for the buns… In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, xylitol. Mix until all combined.

5. Cut the butter into cubes and add into the hot cross bun mixture. Using your hands rub the butter into the mixture with your fingertips until all combined.

6. Start separating the 6 eggs. First add the eggs yolks into the hot cross bun mixture and stir until combined using a wooden spoon.

7. Stir in the candied ginger and any of the syrup that is left over. (I added the thickened paste and ensured I mixed well)

8. In a medium sized mixing bowl, beat the egg whites with the electric beater until soft peaks form. Gently fold into the hot cross bun mixture.

9. At this stage you can add the blueberries and gently fold until all combined evenly. (I skipped this since I couldn’t find blueberries)

10. Place a heaped tablespoon of the hot cross bun mixture into the prepared muffin cases.

11. Now for the cross… In a small mixing bowl add the coconut flour and water until a paste texture is formed. You might need to add more water if the paste gets too thick. Dip a tooth pick into the paste and start forming a cross on the top of the buns. (Sadly I didn’t do this thanks to my lack of coconut flour)

12. Place in oven for 30 mins. Remove from oven when buns are a nice golden brown colour.