We hate to alarm you, but this week is your last chance to get your hands on hot cross buns for at least 11 months (maybe 8, if you’re not offended by the thought of buying buns on Boxing Day). To make this last week of bun fun a top-shelf affair, we’ve rounded up 10 buns to try from names you already know and love plus newcomers who could soon become your favourites.

NEW AND DIFFERENT

The Hamptons Bakery

What are you left with when you ditch the cross on a hot cross bun? Hamptons Bakehouse are considering the big questions of Easter, piping the letter H on to their traditional and chocolate sourdough buns this year. The traditional subs out divisive mixed peel and uses orange puree, which is echoed in the orange glaze. The dark chocolate bun features the best in the business - Callebaut cocoa and Veliche’s Belgian chocolate - mingling with cranberries.

$4 each. The Hamptons Bakery, 427 Hampton St, Hampton or pre-order thehamptonsbakery.com.au

JC Patisserie & Boulangerie

This Abbotsford bakery has a slender street presence but it’s doing big things this Easter, turning out seven different seasonal treats including four varieties of hot cross bun. Founder Jonathan Camilleri says the team settled on a brioche-style dough for its light texture that doesn’t sacrifice richness. Choose from a traditional bun, which omits peel but adds ginger, a hint of cumin and an apricot glaze; a spiced bun which is a fruit-free zone but heady with cinnamon in the dough and glaze; or there’s straightforward chocolate. But the head-turner is a coffee-flavoured bun, featuring the bakery’s custom coffee blend infused into the buttery dough and also in the glaze.

Between $3 and $4 each. 17 Henry Street, Abbotsford, jcpatisserieboulangerie.com.

Bill’s Bakeshop

Bill Eido’s micro baking business might only be a year old, but the ex-Falco baker says he’s been thinking about his hot cross buns for far longer than that. Great care is taken at every step. Eido makes his own fruit peel, uses only Australian ingredients and is generous with the fruit scattered through the buns. Shaped into tight rounds, they’re finished with a brown sugar syrup that is also lightly spiced. You’ll find them alongside sourdough breads and pastries with lots of flaky layers.

$4.50 each. Available at Carlton Farmers Market each Saturday, melbourne-farmers-markets-mfm.myshopify.com

Back Alley Bakes

This home baking operation, a pandemic baby, has flown the coop and is now fully grown. From its large warehouse in an industrial pocket of Coburg, it’s baking three kinds of hotties for Easter. Try the chocolate with a hint of orange, if that’s your thing, or keep things traditional with currants, raisins and sultanas. Don’t eat animals? The vegan bun has all the fruit and spice of the OG but uses soy milk and Nuttelex instead of the usual eggs, milk or butter.

$24 for six. 10 Leslie Avenue, Coburg North, or pre-order at backalleybakes.com.au

Kudo

Has a gluten intolerance always kept the handbrake on your Easter fun? Kudo to the rescue. The entirely gluten-free artisan bakehouse in Melbourne’s CBD is applying its wizardry to hot cross buns, adapting a family recipe from co-founder Felix Goodwin’s father, a pastry chef. An enriched sourdough base is a pillow for raisins, cranberries, sultanas and house-made orange peel, underscored by a family spice mix with notes of cloves, allspice and even white pepper alongside the usual hot cross bun flavours.

$7 each, available from 5 April at 8 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, or pre-order now at kudobakery.com.au

OLD FAVOURITES

Flinders Sourdough

Doing things the old way is the mantra at this Mornington Peninsula bakehouse. At Easter, you’ll find five bakers hand-rolling two buns at a time for hours on end, after the dough has slowly risen using natural leavening. Each bun contains organic fruit from the Murray region and organic butter. They’re baked in a wood-fired oven dating to the 1940s, which helps to maintain the dense, chewy texture of the sourdough - and means the buns are fresh for days. Not that they’ll last that long. On Easter weekend, a chocolate and cardamom flavour with lemon glaze will also be available.

$4 each, available at 58 Cook Street, Flinders or from Alphington Farmers Market (2nd & 3rd Sunday of the month), flinderssourdough.com.au

Ned’s

Glossy little rounds of brioche are loaded up with currants, sultanas, baking spices and mixed peel in these perennially popular Easter buns. It’s a classic take on the genre that will please purists but for those who aren’t afraid to colour outside the lines, there’s always the richer chocolate version. It’s no after-thought, either, with chunks of Koko Black chocolate suspended in a lightly spiced dough. $4 each, locations in Albert Park, Armadale, Middle Park and South Yarra; or pre-order at nedsbake.com.au

Cobb Lane

Avoiding riffs or reissues, this 10-year-old bakery has its eye on the prize. A fruity bun with the luxurious touch of Pepe Saya’s cultured butter through the dough is the result. Those who don’t have time for a citrussy bun should look away now. Orange syrup is brushed on the baked buns, which contain both puree and peel of the fruit, too. In great news, Cobb Lane’s reach now expands well beyond its westside home, too. $4.50 each, locations in Yarraville, South Melbourne, Richmond, cobblane.com.au

Falco

From its new and much larger production space in Collingwood, this magnet for hot cross bun traditionalists is able to bake even better buns, according to co-owner and head baker Christine Tran. “We are much better equipped so I feel like product quality is much higher this year.” She says they’re on track to hand-roll 16,000 of their buns rich in citrus peel, nutmeg and cinnamon, alongside sultanas and currants.

$4 each, 156-158 Langridge Street, Collingwood; 288 Smith Street, Collingwood; or pre-order at falcobakery.com

Wild Life

Meet a vegan bun that isn’t afraid to have some fun. Wildlife’s oil-enriched dough is scattered with a mix of dried fruit that’s had a good soak in The Gospel’s rye whiskey, distilled right here in Melbourne. If all those toasty autumn flavours aren’t your thing, check out the chocolate and sour cherry buns, featuring dark chocolate and a touch of rye wheat to keep the sweetness under control. Both come in a jaunty orange box when you order a six-pack ($27).

$4.50 each, available at 90 Albert Street, Brunswick East or 365 Sydney Road, Brunswick until April 6, or pre-order at shop.wildlifebakery.com