I don’t like to take up too much of your time, or make you scroll 500 miles to get to my recipe. So in keeping it as simple as possible, these are pretty much what they say – gluten, dairy, soy and grain free hot cross buns. You could probably make them nut free too, if you needed, using sunflower flour, which I have added notes about below.
I must add, these hot cross buns, are quite ‘muffiny’ and I have found that in fact if you are after that slightly chewy, more bready texture, that lends itself to hot cross buns, then my egg and coconut free version, hits the spot for that. Which is surprising, given the ‘allergy friendlyness’ of it, which often takes us further away from the real thing, not closer! It turns out that over the last two years of being gluten, dairy, soy, egg and coconut free, I have become quite accustomed to creating some delicious, allergy friendly food. And even though we are now able to have eggs and coconut again, I hope to still include these options in all my recipes for you. Let me know if you have any questions, I now have a messenger feature on the website to make that easier for you, hooray!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups almond meal*
- 1/2 cup tapioca
- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp of each ginger, cloves and nutmeg
- 1/4 cup honey or other sweetener
- 2/3 cup coconut oil
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup dried apricots, diced (we use Ceres Organics preservative free)
- 1/3 cup dried Cranberries (we use Ceres Organics, refined sugar free)
The Crosses:
- 1/8 cup almond meal
- 1/8 cup tapioca
- A tiny dash of sweetner
- 1 tsp of water at a time
*If you are nut free you can substitute the almond meal with sunflower meal (either homemade by blitzing sunflower seeds in a blender or food processor until they are a flour, or store brought). If you cannot have nuts or seeds, you can make hot cross bun flavoured muffins using this recipe, and adding in the above spices.
What to do
Preheat the oven to 180°c fan bake
Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl together.
Melt the coconut oil and add to a seperate bowl, with the honey, and eggs. Whisk them all together, then mix into the dry ingredients. Leave everything to sit on the bench for ten minutes. Put it into the fridge if you are in a hot climate. This gives a chance for the liquids to absorb a little and the coconut oil to firm up which will help you scoop and roll the mix into balls.
Line a square slice baking pan with greased baking paper. Once the mixture has sit for 10 minutes, scoop out large tablespoon sized portions. Grease your hands, then very gently form into balls and place them, just touching in the baking pan. This should yield 12 of the same size buns. If you don’t want to muck around with this, they will cook nicely in a well greased silicon muffin pan.
The Crosses:
Combine the almond meal and tapioca, and a dash of sweetener in a bowl, add the water 1 tsp at a time, until it is a thick, but pipeable consistency. Add the mix into the end of a piping bag, with the smallest nozzle. Or into a glad bag, and just cut a very small snip off the corner. Pipe the mix over your buns to make the crosses.
Bake for 20 minutes. The buns should be starting to turn golden on top. The ones around the edges will be well cooked, but check the buns in the middle, they might need an extra few minutes. I have found that when they are just a little softer to touch, they continue to cook after I take them out of the oven and when left to sit for a while, end up cooked through.
Remove the whole baking paper with buns still on top, to a wire rack to cool. Don’t worry about removing the paper from underneath until they are cooled properly.
Enjoy as is, or cut in half and spread with dairy free spread, or butter if you can have it.
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