How baking boom makes 2025 year of the haute hot cross bun

The baking boom is making this the year of the haute hot cross bun. Here are five of the very best coming out of ovens in Sydney.

Traditional something more interesting, the baking boom is making 2025 the year of the haute hot cross bun. Here are five of the best coming out of Sydney ovens.

Baker Bleu

Various locations

Baker Bleu.

This year, you can choose from Baker Bleu’s traditional version or its new sour cherry and dark chocolate. Either way, you’ll find yourself indulging in pure bun perfection. Baker Bleu’s slogan may be “bread for sharing”, but you’ll have a hard time sharing these. The only way to make these buns even better? Serve them with the very best cultured butter you can find. Chef Neil Perry, who’s a partner in the Double Bay outpost of this Melbourne-founded bakery, also recommends a sprinkle of salt flakes on top of your butter. Trust us when we say it’ll change your life.

bakerbleu.com.au

Bourke Street Bakery

Various locations

Bourke Street Bakery.

With Bourke Street Bakeries popping up all over Sydney, it’s easier than ever to grab one of their traditional hot cross buns. Or you can level up with one of their chunky chocolate and cranberry buns – handmade with Belgian dark chocolate chunks and overnight-soaked cranberries and finished with a hint of cinnamon. Take things a step further and slather your bun with the bakery’s Spiced Rum Butter – featuring rum from Brix Distillery in Surry Hills, and CopperTree Farms butter. This is blended with icing sugar and whipped to smooth perfection – and is insanely good on a warm, soft bun.

bourkestreetbakery.com.au

Humble Bakery

Surry Hills

Humble Bakery.

The Surry Hills baking institution leans into a “more is more” approach. Last year, it released the “Reu-Bun” – a hot cross bun packed with pastrami, pickles, sauerkraut and Dijon mustard. Wrinkle your nose if you must, but it worked. This year, they’re ramping up the sweetness, with a hot cross bun ice cream sandwich – Humble’s traditional spice fruit bun filled with house-made salted butter ice cream, using CopperTree Farms cultured butter. It’s available exclusively at Humble Surry Hills until April 21. The bakery’s traditional hot cross buns are available at all three stores until April 21.

Shop 2, 50 Holt St, Surry Hills; humblesydney.com

A.P Bakery

Various locations

A.P Bakery.

The secret to the fluffy bliss buns at A.P Bakery is the heavenly host of spices milled and toasted in-house – think clove, allspice, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg – and kneaded into a dough made using a slow, four-day fermentation process. This allows for the best rise and ultimate texture, and really lets those spices blend together and sing in perfect harmony. All the best fruits are also included – orange peel, apricot, currants and sultanas. Once these beauties have been baked to perfection, they get slathered with a brown sugar and orange glaze, bringing you what is basically autumn in bun form.

apbakery.com.au

Sonoma Bakery

Various locations

Sonoma Bakery.

Renowned as artisan bread and pastry stars par excellence, Sonoma unsurprisingly makes some of the city’s best hot cross buns. But they’re a little different to your usual offering. Bucking the traditional cross, Sonoma’s Not Cross Buns are back this Easter, sporting a piped “S” instead of the traditional cross. Juicy spiced raisins, currants cranberries, apricots and candied orange are all in there, with a spiced glaze on top. The bakery also uses a technique called “tangzhong” – a pre-cooked flour and water paste – that keeps the buns softer and fluffier longer by allowing the dough to absorb more moisture.

sonomabakery.com

Originally published as How baking boom makes 2025 year of the haute hot cross bun