I love hot cross buns. I love them smeared with butter or dobbled (new word meaning ‘so thickly spread that the only way to do it is with a spoon’) with lemon curd, slathered with peanut butter or Nutella, or both at once.
I always buy too many hot cross buns and end up with a freezer full of them. Oh c’mon, they are only available for four months starting the day after Christmas once a year – I need to stock up. Although, having started eating hot cross buns in February (yes, I am one of those people), by Good Friday I’m looking for something different.
This is different…
Salted Caramel Hot Cross Bun Pudding
Oh yes, you read that correctly. I made this for Good Friday breakfast last year and we ate the whole thing. There were two of us. We didn’t even share with Ted (grapes/raisins are poisonous for dogs). It was THAT good.
Because we ate the whole thing in one day I haven’t dared make it again because we will eat it all…again. You need this recipe before the long weekend though, so I am using the photos from last year’s effort. Just imagine them with slightly more photographic skill and a better camera.
My recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s. Which is adapted from a recipe published in the New York Times by Amanda Hesser (co-founder of Food52) – quite a pedigree (and I’m not including myself in that statement 🙂 ).
The best bit about this breakfast is that you can make it the night before and then just bake it in the morning. I am not a morning person so this is perfect for me.
It is actually remarkably easy. You make the caramel (don’t fret if it separates, it’ll all work out in the end), pour into a tin, arrange pieces of bun on top, pour over an eggy mixture and bake.
When you turn out the pudding you end up with a crunchy french toast base, a thick layer of crunchy salted caramel toffee on top and lots of salted caramel syrup infused hot cross bun layers.
I think that deserves revisiting: lots of salted caramel syrup infused hot cross bun layers. That is my happy place.
Happy Easter!
Want some more Easter recipes?
Check out my Cadbury Creme Egg Cake or my roundup of Eggcellent Easter Recipes
- 75g/2.6 oz unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2-3 pinches of sea salt
- 4-5 hot cross buns depending on size (I used a combination of fruit and choc chip buns)
- 5 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- Grease a 20cm round cake tin. Do not line.
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add sugar and salt.
- Reduce heat to medium low and stir frequently- watching it the whole time - until the caramel is a light toffee brown. See note.
- Pour the caramel into the cake tin. Make sure the cake tin is on a wooden board or similar as it will get incredibly hot.
- Allow to cool (caramel will harden).
- Whisk together eggs, mascarpone, milk and vanilla.
- Slice the buns into 1cm (ish) slices and arrange over your hardened caramel.
- Pour your milk/egg mixture over the top and squish down the buns so that it is all covered and moist.
- Cover with plastic wrap and pop in the fridge overnight (or you can cook it immediately).
- If cooking the next morning, remove tin from fridge and allow it to warm to room temperature while you preheat oven to 190C/375F
- Bake for 30 minutes or until brown and crunchy on top and cooked in the middle.
- Run a knife around the edge of the pudding.
- Place a plate on top and using pot holders, invert the pudding onto the plate.
- You might be left with a huge hard toffee slab left in the pan. If so (hooray!), just scoop it out and put it back on top of your pudding.
- Serve with mascarpone.
- The salted caramel will look like it is going to fail horribly for a long time, then it will all come together briefly before separating again. Do not panic. Just keep giving it a stir until the sugar has melted, the caramel looks relatively smooth (the butter will probably be floating on top of it- that is OK) and the caramel is a light toffee brown.
- Do not touch the caramel at all, it will be insanely hot.
I don’t even like hot cross buns but my god I want to try that!
Brioche works beautifully too 🙂
Hehe is it bad that we’ve eaten all the HCBs? 😉 But using lemon curd is such an interesting idea!
Just make some more- lemon curd is delicious with spicy buns 🙂
I recreated something similar with Hot Cross Buns from my nana’s Bread Pudding. I also ate it for breakfast. Hot Cross Buns are winning whichever way you bake them. But are prize winning slathered in salted caramel. This pudding ain’t for sharing!
Haha, I loved your recipe too. Had a brief squizz in assignment-swamped easter weekend.
This looks amazingly sinful!
Forget the sin, it is pretty amazing though 🙂
I think I almost choked on my own drool. I haven’t had hot cross buns in ages. I’m a sucker for anything with caramel and this looks amazing. Oh my gosh, I just looked at it again…this would not last in my house! I actually like when things have raisins in them now because then I don’t have to feel guilty for not sharing with my dog. She knows how to play me like a fool!
Oh Koda! Ted has decided he hates easter- all that tempting chocolate and none for him.
Gosh you make me laugh, don’t choke on your own drool 🙂
Holy moly!! That definitely deserves revisiting! How on earth have I never heard of this before? Amazing! Haha I would eat it all too 🙂
Hidden in the Seeking Victory archives. Definitely worth bringing out 🙂
Yum!!
No need to image anything – this looks delicious! Yuuuum! Happy Easter! Xx
Thank you, and to you too (albeit belated)
Oh my stars, this looks delightful. This would be something my mum and I would fight over. Maybe I should make it and not tell her…
Or just make two 😉
Oh my, that looks so delicious!! Yummy x
Thank you. It’s super yummy, hope you had a lovely Easter.
Oh my god, where was this recipe last week? Why was I not here on this page? Easter’s over but I can still make it, right? Right??
And here I am replying even later.
Of course you can still make it. Works with fruit loaf or brioche or anything you like (or leftover HCBs)
Oh wow, that looks delicious! And perfect for the rainy, cold easter we had!
Thank you, such a lovely winter dessert too. But very dangerous 🙂
This takes hot cross buns to a whole new level. That crunchy toffee coating looks divine. I wouldn’t share either if this came across my kitchen table.
Haha, I have stocked up on hot cross buns so i can make it again next time I have a day off 🙂
Hot Cross Buns on survived two days in our house. I’m not a huge fan but it seems around these parts I am the only one. 🙂
I always buy extra so I have enough for the pudding 🙂 it would be delicious with fruit loaf (or any kind of bread really) too.
Oh my god that looks amazing. I’m sad this year because we forgot to buy extra hot cross buns for freezing!
OH my gosh! This is all kinds of amazing!!!!
Aww shucks, thank you 🙂