Hot cross bun

A soft, spiced sweet yeast bun with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on top and eaten around Easter.

Hot cross bun: A tray of glossy golden hot cross buns baked together, each with a pale cross on top and currants visible, one pulled apart to show the soft spiced crumb.
  • Cakes, cookies, pastries and baked goods
  • United Kingdom

Hot cross buns are made from an enriched dough of flour, milk, butter, sugar and yeast, flavored with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, and studded with currants, raisins or candied peel. The shaped buns are proofed close together on a tray, so they bake into soft, pull-apart rolls.

The cross is piped on before baking with a simple flour and water paste, or added afterward in icing. A sticky sugar glaze is brushed on while the buns are hot. They are traditionally eaten on Good Friday in Britain, Ireland, Australia and other countries, split and toasted with butter.

Bake it at VanillaGoods

Related entries

Sources

Written by VanillaGoods in our own words from these sources. Last reviewed October 15, 2026.

  1. Spring-time, planting and Easter, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (England: The Other Within)