KP+: Cheesy Hot Cross Garlic Buns
A New Bun Enters The HXB Chat
What happens when you cross a hot cross bun with a Korean cream cheese garlic bread?
It’s a question I’ve had for about a year, but my strictly seasonally abiding mental restraints have prevented me from exploring this question until now, with Easter finally in spitting distance. (Note to self: think about whether ‘spitting distance’ is a good phrase for a piece of writing that is supposed to be tempting people into baking).
You see, I LOVE hot cross buns. I return yearly to my trusty recipe and, in the last five years that I’ve been writing this newsletter, we’ve seen this season come and go together many times. With it has come an ever-widening net of hot cross bun adjacent bakes and increasingly dysfunctional thematic recipes that have spanned form, function and logic: A cookie, a BUN-dt, custard-stuffed swirls, CROSS-aints. The puns, while not exhausted, have somewhat run the gamut and heading into 2026, I wanted to do something a little different.
So, what if I suggested a savoury bake? Perhaps I am “late to the game” for this particular internet-beloved bake, but garlicky Korean cream cheese-stuffed breads, baked then cut & stuffed in a geometric pattern, are not miles away, at least visually, from a hot cross bun. And I think it is a fact that bread, garlic and butter are a combination that could never truly be bad. I gave a few runs at it, and I’m thrilled to offer you an alternative bake for the weekend: Hot Cross Cheesy Garlic Buns.
Here’s how we’ll do it: Start off with a soft, tender dinner-roll style bun with a tangzhong base. Once proofed, shape into buns and tuck into a square pan and let them proof together before baking til golden. When they are cool enough to handle, we use a sharp knife (my serrated tomato knife from Victorinox worked best) to cut crosses about halfway into the baked buns. Into this gap, we spoon garlic butter (with parsley, if desired), then fill with a cheesy bechamel. Pop back into the oven and bake until melty and crisp, then drench with the remaining butter. The results are… undeniably delicious.
I tried a version using the classic cream cheese filling, and while good, I prefer a more deeply cheesy and unctuous texture, which you can get from bechamel. It also makes a much more satisfying cross on top! I’m not sure the best time to serve these – perhaps as a starter before lunch? Or as a snack? They reheat unbelievably well. Ten to twenty seconds
Since we have arrived in wild garlic season here in the UK (and I believe ramps are Ramp-ant in the US), I also tried a version with wild garlic butter, which is, unsurprisingly, very gorgeous. You can follow the directions for the buns below and sub in wild garlic butter, which you can find a recipe for here.
Whether you make these buns, the classic HXB, or choose not to bake at all this long weekend, I hope it is sunny, I hope you are blessed with all the chocolate eggs, crisp sugar-shelled ones and little gold wrapped bunnies, and I’ll see you soon.