Easter Hot Cross Biscuits

Where do you land when it comes to Easter brunch?  Are you a ham, roasted lamb, and scalloped potato family?  Are you more of a quiche salad and biscuit clan?  Do you skip directly to the jelly beans and Cadbury mini eggs?  I’m nodding my head yes – there’s no wrong way to do it.  We are a ham family.  Ham and biscuits.  Ham, biscuits and plastic eggs filled with either chocolate or the coveted one dollar bill.  However you get down, today’s offering is an updated JtB classic – Hot Cross Buns turned into the much more approachable Hot Cross Biscuits.  No fussing with yeast and rise times. Yes fussing with cream cheese frosting and dried fruit.

Ever wonder WHY Hot Cross things are synonymous with Easter?  Me too.  The Kitchn  provides us with insights.  With that little bit of trivia tucked under your belt, my prayer is that your Easter weekend is filled with buttery warm biscuits and not one single pair of uncomfortable tights under your Easter dress. We can explore why our childhood tights were downright criminal another time.

Though it’s not officially Good Friday, I hope it’s a good Friday nonetheless. Wait was that a catholic pun?  Hm, let’s make biscuits!

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make these Hot Cross Buns (that are secretly just biscuits):

•  all-purpose flour

•  baking powder

•  kosher salt

•  cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes

•  buttermilk

•  a large egg

•  dried currants, dried cherries, raisins, or finely chopped dried apricots

•  lemon or orange zest

•  cream cheese

•  powdered sugar

•  milk

•  vanilla extract

•  spices are optional but lovely, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg

I don’t use any special equipment save for this set of biscuit cutters.

We’ll start our hot cross buns turned Easter biscuit recipe by whisking together the dry ingredients.  In a large mixing bowl sir together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Add the cold butter and whatever citrus zest you’re using.  Use your fingers or a pastry cutter to work the cold butter into small butter bits within the dry ingredients.  The butter bits will be the size of small peas and oat flakes after a speedy 3 to 5 minutes of working the ingredients.

Toss in the dried fruit you prefer.  These are dried currants which are traditional to the Hot Cross Bun though cherries or chopped dried apricots are my preference. A few dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg are nice but not totally necessary.

Next we’ll whisk together the wet ingredients: a large egg meets cold buttermilk.

Create a well in the middle of the buttery dry ingredients and add the egg and buttermilk mixture.  I use a wooden spoon to bring the two together into a shaggy dough.

The dough will feel cohesive and just a bit sticky. Make sure there are no hidden dry patches at the bottom of the bowl.

Roll the biscuit dough on a lightly floured work surface.  I like to keep the dough about 1-inch thick before cutting into rounds.  Tall biscuit dough will bake into tall biscuits.

To hot cross the biscuits, cut each round in quarters.  Tuck the pieces, cozy next to each other on the baking pan. The hot cross buns will bake up with an indentation – a perfect space for cream cheese icing.

While the biscuits bake and cool, whip together an easy cream cheese frosting.

Naturally, the frosting is my favorite part of these biscuits. A little sweet. A little buttery. Rich with cream cheese.  It’s almost as though we could skip the smear of butter and jam on these biscuits. I mean… we won’t, but maybe we could.

Use a piping bag fitted with a medium round tip (I used a Wilton 12 tip) or a sturdy plastic freezer bag with the corner snipped off to pipe crosses with a generous amount of cream cheese frosting onto the biscuits.  Serve same day or keep at room temperature until ready to serve.

That’s your holiday brunch biscuit! Happy Easter, friends!

Print