These homemade hot cross bun muffins are a simple and delicious twist on the traditional Easter hot cross bun. These easy Easter muffins are soft and fluffy, perfect for an Easter brunch, sweet snack or dessert!
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✏️ Why you'll love this recipe
I love a traditional hot cross bun, the fruity currants and peel combined with the mixed spice make them one of my favourite Easter food traditions.
I wanted to create a recipe that was just as delicious as the Easter classic, but without the need for yeast or proving dough, etc. These glazed hot cross bun muffins are the best easy update on a tradition.
These spiced muffins have such a soft and tender crumb. The Easter muffins have a beautiful golden brown colouring thanks to the cinnamon and other spices too.
To make the muffins look more like hot cross buns, I added a golden syrup glaze to them to give the tops a beautiful sticky sweet shine. A white icing cross on top is the finishing touch to look just like a hot cross bun. These muffins are one of my best Easter recipes!
Made without yeast, these muffins are much easier than hot cross buns, but still have that spiced fruit buns flavours of an old-fashioned hot cross bun.
They also make an amazing Easter bake sale treat or an easy Birthday tea idea.
🥘 Ingredients
This hot cross bun muffins recipe calls for the following ingredients:
Spiced muffins
- Egg: large size, room temperature for ease of mixing.
- Vegetable oil: or other neutral flavoured oil e.g. sunflower or canola.
- Milk: whole or semi-skimmed.
- White sugar: finely granulated e.g. caster sugar.
- Vanilla extract: use paste or extract over essence for best flavour.
- Plain all-purpose flour: sieve for a smooth blondie batter.
- Baking powder: check the expiration date!
- Ground cinnamon: or mixed spice / pumpkin spice.
- Ground nutmeg: optional.
- Ground ginger: optional.
- Salt
- Sultanas: or raisins.
- Mixed peel: candied fruit peel.
Glaze
- Golden syrup: or other syrup of choice e.g. corn syrup.
Cross decoration
- Powdered icing sugar
- Warm water
See the recipe card for quantities.
Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.
♻️ Substitutions / Variations
Ingredient substitutions
You can swap plain flour for self-raising flour of the same quantity and reduce the baking powder by 2 tsp.
The golden syrup glaze on your spiced Easter muffins can be substituted for another syrup like maple syrup or corn syrup. For more alternatives, check out my top golden syrup substitutions or make your own homemade golden syrup.
You can swap the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg spices for a mixed all-spice like pumpkin spice.
For a richer sweet flavour to your Easter muffins, you can swap the white sugar for light brown soft sugar of the same amount.
Serve hot
If you do like your spiced muffins hot, you can pop them into the microwave for a short 30secs blast, or reheat them in the oven wrapped in foil for 20mins on low-medium heat (150oC fan). They taste better reheated in the oven!
Your cross decoration may melt a little into an icing drizzle instead.
Spread a little butter over your warm hot cross bun muffins - perfect for serving at Easter brunch!
Add-ins
If I’m feeling extra decadent, I’ll add 45g (¼ cup) of milk chocolate chips to the muffin batter,
Alternatively, you can swap 30-50g of the sultanas for other fruits, such as finely chopped apple.
📖 Method
Spiced muffins
- Preheat oven: 180°C / 160°C (fan) / Gas Mark 4 / 350°F
- In a mixing bowl, beat the egg, oil and mik together until smooth and thickened.
- Add in the sugar and vanilla extract, continuing to beat until fully combined.
- In a separate mixing bowl, sieve the flour, bicarbinate of soda (or baking powder) and then add in the spices, salt, mixed peel and sultanas, mixing them together until the fruit is coated completely.
- Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring together gently until only just combined.
- Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin cases in the muffin pan, filling them almost to the brim.
- Bake in the oven for 20-25mins or until risen, golden on top and a skewer comes out clean.
Syrup glaze
- As soon as you take the muffins out, transfer them to a wire cooling rack and brush the tops generously with syrup to glaze them and allow them to cool (roughly 30mins).
Cross decoration
- Once the muffins have cooled, sieve the powdered sugar for the crosses into a mixing bowl.
- Stir in 1 teaspoon of hot water, mixing together until combined. If the icing is too thick to form a paste, add more hot water (1 teaspoon at a time), until the icing sugar comes together into a smooth paste. It should be very thick but still able to slowly run off your spoon.
- Fill your piping bag (with a small round nozzle attached) or a sandwich bag with the corner cut off, and pipe a cross over the top of each cooled muffin.
💭 Top tips
- For soft and fluffy hot cross bun muffins don't over-mix the muffin batter. Too much beating can cause your spiced muffins to be dense and heavy.
- Add your wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring in slowly. This will reduce the lumps in your mixture. Don’t worry if there are still a few stubborn ones left though.
- When pouring your Easter muffin batter into the muffin liners, fill each of your muffin cases to roughly ⅘ full. If you fill it less than this, you might have your muffins looking a bit more like big cupcakes than traditional muffins, as they may not rise enough to spill over slightly.
- If you're using tulip muffin cases, only fill them ⅔ full of muffin batter, as you don't want these spilling over.
- When your muffins have finished baking, it’s best to glaze them with syrup straight away. The warmth from the muffin will help the syrup spread nicely brushed over the tops of your golden muffins, giving them a beautiful shine. The syrup will dry to a glossy sticky layer, just like a real hot cross bun!
❔ Recipe FAQs
Your hot cross bun muffins should last for up 3 days stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
Yes! You can freeze your hot cross bun muffin wrapped in a layer of cling film and a layer of foil for up to 3 months. Defrost in the fridge and enjoy!
To make these hot cross bun muffins gluten-free, swap the plain all-purpose flour for a gluten-free plain flour 1:1 blend of the same quantity.
The other ingredients should be gluten-free, but please be sure to check the label on your ingredients for cross-contamination just in case!
🧁 Other goodies
Looking for some more easy treats?
To level up your Easter brunch, you can also use this homemade apple syrup to sweeten your morning! Drizzle over your hot spiced muffins, pancakes and more.
Or give this delicious Spring brunch easy lemon loaf a try - perfect with a cuppa! You'll also love the lemon and raspberry loaf cake version too.
For cute Easter dessert ideas, why not try my BEST easy chocolate bunny cake or these delicious mini egg cornflake nests (without golden syrup).
Check out my full collection of Easter desserts for more great seasonal recipes!
Other related recipes:
Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!
Or if you’d like to hear about our latest recipes, why not subscribe to our newsletter?
📋 Recipe
Hot Cross Bun Muffins
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Equipment
Ingredients
Muffins:
- 1 egg (large)
- 70 ml (⅓ cups) vegetable or sunflower oil
- 140 ml (⅔ cups) milk (semi-skimmed or whole)
- 125 g (⅔ cups) caster sugar (golden or white)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 200 g (1 ⅔ cups) plain all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or mixed spice)
- A pinch of ground nutmeg (optional)
- A pinch of ground ginger (optional)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 100 g (⅔ cups) sultanas
- 50 g (⅓ cups) mixed peel
Glaze:
- 2 tablespoon golden syrup (or light corn syrup)
Cross:
- 3 tablespoon powdered icing sugar
- 1-3 teaspoon hot water
Instructions
Muffins:
- Preheat oven: 180°C / 160°C (fan) / Gas Mark 4 / 350°F
- In a mixing bowl, beat the egg, oil and mik together until smooth and thickened.
- Add in the sugar and vanilla extract, continuing to beat until fully combined.
- In a separate mixing bowl, sieve the flour, bicarbinate of soda (or baking powder) and then add in the spices, salt, mixed peel and sultanas, mixing them together until the fruit is coated completely.
- Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring together gently until only just combined.
- Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin cases in the muffin pan, filling them almost to the brim.
- Bake in the oven for 20-25mins or until risen, golden on top and a skewer comes out clean.
Glaze:
- As soon as you take the muffins out, transfer them to a wire cooling rack and brush the tops generously with syrup to glaze them and allowing them to cool (roughly 30mins).
Cross:
- Once the muffins have cooled, sieve the powdered sugar for the crosses into a mixing bowl.
- Stir in 1 teaspoon of hot water, mixing together until combined. If the icing is too thick to form a paste, add more hot water (1 teaspoon at a time), until the icing sugar comes together into a smooth paste. It should be very thick but still able to slowly run off your spoon.
- Fill your piping bag (with a small round nozzle attached) or a sandwich bag with the corner cut off, and pipe a cross over the top of each cooled muffin.
Notes
- For soft and fluffy hot cross bun muffins don't over-mix the muffin batter. Too much beating can cause your spiced muffins to be dense and heavy.
- Fill your muffin cases to roughly ⅘ full for the best muffin-top. If you're using tulip muffin cases, only fill them ⅔ full of muffin batter.
- When your muffins have finished baking, glaze them with syrup straight away. The warmth from the muffin will help the syrup spread better over the tops of your muffins for a beautiful shine.
- Swap the plain flour for self-raising flour of the same quantity (200g) and reduce the baking powder by 2 tsp.
- You can swap the golden syrup glaze for another syrup such as maple syrup or corn syrup.
- You can use 1 teaspoon ground mixed spice (pumpkin spice) in place of the cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate based on an online nutritional calculator, actual values may vary.
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