Chocolate Hot Cross Buns

In a large bowl combine milk, yeast, salt and ½ teaspoon sugar in a large bowl. You have to mix this together well—I prefer to use a wooden spoon. Make sure the yeast is well mixed in. Cover loosely with plastic and leave bowl in a warm spot for 10 minutes or until the mixture is slightly bubbled on top. Mine was not very frothy/bubbly, but I left it for around 12 minutes and there were bubbles on the top of the mixture.

In another large bowl, sift flour, cocoa and cinnamon together. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar, the frothy yeast mixture, butter and egg. Stir until the mixture comes together. It will be a thick, shaggy dough and very sticky. Turn the mixture out onto a well-floured bench. Make sure your hands are well floured. Knead the dough until it is smooth. I had to knead mine for 10-15 minutes. It actually wasn’t working for a while, so if this happens for you, just do what I did: leave the dough for a minute or two and let it breathe. Then, retry. My dough wasn’t perfectly smooth; it was still a little sticky but it stuck together.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl (I simply sprayed mine heavily with coconut oil). Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap. Leave the dough in a warm place so the dough will rise. I left mine for about 1 hour 10 minutes, but leave for up to 1 hour 30 minutes if the dough has not doubled in size. Mine doubled very quickly—in fact it rose over the bowl and stuck to the plastic. There is nothing wrong with this, it means you’ve done a good job. I went for a run while my dough was rising.

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down to its original size with your fist. This is the best bit of the recipe; it’s so much fun.

Turn down on to a floured surface and add the chocolate chips slowly, kneading the bread until the chips are evenly spread throughout the mixture.

On a tray or in a large, deep pan, divide the mixture into 12 equal portions to make 12 balls of dough. Mine were not perfectly circular, not at all. But it doesn’t really matter, it still looks good. Make sure you place the balls about 1 centimeter apart, as the dough has to rise one more time.

Cover the balls with plastic wrap and leave the pan in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size. This takes about 30 minutes. I left mine for a good 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200ºC (about 390ºF). Bake the buns for 15–20 minutes. The top of the buns will be a golden brown and when a skewer is inserted into the dough, it should come out clean. This may take less time depending on your oven. Keep a good eye on it.

If you want to glaze the muffins, simply boil the water with the sugar for about 3 minutes. Then brush the sugar mixture over the warm muffins.

After this, while the muffins are warm, make the crosses. I used a knife to simply spread the Nutella over the buns to make a cross.

Serve warm. You can serve them at warm temperature, but warm, when the chocolate chips melt out into your mouth, is so much better. These buns can be reheated easily. I don’t know how long they last in the fridge because we ate them all.

(Recipe adapted from Achieve Success.)