‘Not even toasting can rescue them’: The best and worst supermarket hot cross buns
It’s hot cross bun season! Sure, like strawberries, nowadays they seem to be available all year round. But I’m not interested in eating them until the time is right, which these days is around now, when daffodils are blooming in my window boxes. Yes, I know, hot cross buns aren’t technically Lenten fare, but just as the real, home-grown strawberry season has stretched over the last few decades, so has my craving for spiced, fruity, sweet rolls.
The array of bun flavours available in the shops does blossom as spring progresses. Some of the more baroque offerings this year include Asda’s tiramisu version and Tesco’s rhubarb and custard. For this week’s test, first I tasted and compared the regular kind, with dried fruit and spice. These should be a fairly simple affair – bread dough enriched with a bit of butter, gently spiced and studded with dried fruit, then baked with a sticky, shiny glaze to show off the pale cross.
Not that you would know it, looking at the ingredients lists on the supermarket offerings, which are almost all jam-packed with industrial ingredients which nudge them into the ultra-processed food (UPF) category. Palm oil or fat turns up in all except the Asda Exceptional, Aldi Village Bakery and M&S The Collection buns.
Even more prevalent are emulsifiers: only two, M&S The Collection and Lidl Deluxe, don’t list them. These additives – often mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids – make the dough lighter and airier (a texture you may prefer, but it’ll also make the bun look bigger) as well as lengthening the shelf life.
Emulsifiers may be replaced with “processing aids”, for example enzymes such as lipases and amylase, but you won’t find these on the ingredients list, because theoretically they are not present in the finished product. Frustratingly, for a labels nerd like me, there is no way of knowing if they have been used.
But enough getting hot and cross. There are plenty of good buns out there, worth a lavish spread of butter, as I found out tasting my way through 18 packs of standard buns and 22 varieties of unusual flavours.
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Classic hot cross buns
Unusual flavours
Ready for a bun fight? Like a crowd of needy toddlers, the supermarkets are vying for our attention with ever wackier flavours of hot cross bun. From rhubarb and custard to tiramisu, the development kitchens have tried pretty much everything to make the bun more fun – with varying degrees of success. Here’s the league table of 22 from knackered to knockout.
