Whether you’re anti-peel, pro-cardamom or a fan of a wildcard hot cross bun, here’s where to go for your annual Easter treat.
Heading into your favourite bakeries to see if their hot cross buns are as good as last year’s is like an early autumn sport. Then there are all the newcomers you need to trial. Do they use peel or not? Is it sweet or all about spice? Thankfully, Good Food and the Brisbane Times team have done the legwork for you. Consider this a reminder that your annual bun-eating window is fast closing.
This immensely popular Bulimba spot often has locals queueing out the door for its extensive, elevated range of pastries, breads and baby cakes.
This Easter, Darvella is serving a cutch of hot cross bun specials, including a raspberry velvet bun that features rich red cocoa dough spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and citrus zest, and comes stuffed full of raspberries, white and dark chocolate, and a brandy-soaked fruit blend, and a Kinder Bueno bun that pipes hazelnut cream into a cocoa-spiced hot cross dough filled with white and dark chocolate and the same brandy-soaked fruit blend.
There’s also a hot cross bun iced chai, which is infused with a house-made hot cross bun raisin syrup.
Nodo, Brisbane CBD, South Bank, Newstead, West End, Carindale, Everton Park, Camp Hill
Nodo’s entirely gluten-free menu includes its annual selection of hot cross buns.
This year, we tried the regular sourdough hot cross bun and the chocolate sourdough bun. Both are luscious creations, richly seasoned with the familiar Easter spices of nutmeg, cloves, cardamon, allspice and star anise.
Nodo is also peddling a variety of Easter-themed doughnuts such as caramel egg, freckle bunny and carrot cake.
Cerin Pasticceria, Woolloongabba
Tucked away on the heritage Logan Road precinct in Woolloongabba, Cerin Pasticceria opened in June last year and quickly built a reputation for its fastidiously prepared Italian pastries and sandwiches.
This Easter Cerin is serving a hot cross maritozzo, baking raisins and traditional hot cross spices into its brioche and applying a dollop of cinnamon custard to its centre before adding the traditional whipped cream.
Doughcraft, CBD
Doughcraft on Mary Street serves French-Italian bakery treats during the day and fast-paced Italian food at night.
For Easter it’s added both a classic and a chocolate hot cross bun to its daily menu. The classic buns have a lush fruit mix paired with a fragrant spice blend.
Super soft and fluffy, they can be enjoyed as is, but pop them in the toaster and finish with a spread of butter to take them to another level.
Lune, CBD and South Brisbane
Take some croissant dough and add all the goodness typically found in a hot cross bun – mixed spices, laminated dried fruit, candy peel – and fill it with a brown butter mousseline (plus, add the cross, of course) and you have Lune’s lovably over-the-top hot cross cruffin.
There’s also a chocolate variation that’s made with choc-chip croissant pastry, a chocolate mousseline and comes topped with a cocoa cross.
Riser, Toowong
Suburban Toowong’s Queenslander-cute Riser eschews the traditional cross to instead serve what it calls Easter Time Buns.
Made with organic fruit from Mick’s Nuts and a house-made spice blend, these vegan-friendly buns are baked until the crust is satisfyingly crispy, but are still rich and fluffy inside.
You can pair them with a classic butter and plum jam, but Riser also makes its own croissant butter that’s infused with dulce de leche.
Jocelyn’s Provisions, Albion, Camp Hill, Fortitude Valley
This Brisbane cult favourite rarely does things by halves, and this year for Easter its brought back its extravagant filled hot cross buns.
You can choose between the more traditionally minded spiced cardamom bun that oozes with spiced cream, and a double chocolate number that does the same with chocolate cream.
Other Easter specials include speckled chocolate egg-topped rocky road, fondant cookies and a chocolate drip basque cheesecake.
Agnes Bakery, Fortitude Valley
The Brisbane bakery everyone can agree on is once again serving its fragrant sourdough hot cross buns that come – like everything it does – licked with flame from its enormous four-tonne, locally made Beech woodfired oven.
That treatment adds a distinctive earthiness to a bun packed full of cinnamon, nutmeg, currants, raisins and Agnes’ special spice mix.
The best thing? The bakery is open throughout Easter, in case you need a mid-long weekend hot cross pick-me-up.
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
