What you’ll need
4 cups The Healthy Baker Plain Flour
40g cocoa
1 cup chocolate chips
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
¼ cup caster sugar
1 tablespoon dry yeast
pinch salt
250mls milk
60g butter, softened
1 egg, lightly whisked
For the cross
½ cup The Healthy Baker Plain Flour
125mls water, cold
For the glaze
⅓ cup plum jam
⅓ cup water
Place the milk in a small saucepan on medium-high heat until warm. Whisk in the butter and egg.
Combine all dry ingredients in an electric mixer and made a well in the middle.
Pour in the milk mixture and using the kneading attachment, knead for five minutes. You can do this by hand too, in which case, tip the dry ingredients out onto a work surface, make a well in the centre tip in the warm milk mixture and bring together into a dough, knead for five minutes.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean tea towel. Set aside until doubled in size, about two hours.
Divide dough into 12 even-sized portions, work into round balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, about three centimeters apart. For this recipe, we weighed out 15 buns at 75g of dough each.
For the cross paste, whisk the flour and water together into a smooth paste and spoon into a zip-lock plastic bag. Snip the end off the bag and pipe a cross on each bun.
Preheat oven to 180C and let the buns sit for another 20 minutes.
For the glaze, combine the jam and cold water in a saucepan on low heat and gently bring to a simmer.
Brush this over the buns and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Serve with butter and a little more jam.
