Top Aussie Pastry Chefs Weigh In: Should Hot Cross Buns Be Toasted or Microwaved? (2024)

In 2019, two Broadsheet editors pondered one of life’s important questions: should hot cross buns be microwaved or toasted?. Okay, it’s absolutely not an important question, but for one afternoon it consumed our attention.

We decided to see what the experts think is the best way to prep a hot cross bun for devouring, so we put the question to pastry chefs around the country. This is what they said.

Natalie Paull, Beatrix Bakes, Melbourne
I love all buns equally and confess I enjoy buying them on Boxing Day (the shame!). And I’ll take them toasted, please and thank you. I do this because I want more than a warm bun – I want that dark, dark toasted colour (on the cusp of burnt, truth be told) with a little char on the dried fruit inside that only radiant heat can bring. Then I cool to lukewarm and lay tiles of cold good salted butter on top. If you can toast under a grill, you can retain a soft “under bun”, which is the ultimate. I have absolutely nothing against microwaves, but microwaving yeasted treats means a flaccid and sweaty bun that feels gummy to eat. Nope, not a fan.

If I buy a really, really good bun, or am eating from my own batches, then my foremost fondness is untoasted for fresh pillowy bun-age. The bun must be within a strict post-bake window of one to four hours, pulled apart and spread with a breathtaking smear of slightly softened salted butter. Eat the sweeter glazed top half first then the bottom. This is a perfect bun time for me.

Gianna Ephraims, Otto Brisbane
If I had to choose, it would be toast – that crunchy texture combined with too much butter is heaven. I wouldn’t say it’s silly, but for me the only way you’re not toasting or pan-frying a hot cross bun is if it’s fresh out of the oven and all you need is an excessive amount of butter that melts in while it’s still warm. The technique I use is pan-frying with a little bit of olive oil and then finishing it off with butter until it goes super foamy. The best. The result is a soft bun with a butter-soaked middle and crispy golden top.

Lindsay Krahenbring, Darvella Patisserie, Brisbane
I actually don’t even own a microwave so I wouldn’t have considered this an option, but even if I did, I would still toast my HCB, 100 per cent. I like the soft interior and crunchy exterior of a toasted HCB, slathered in butter of course. I suppose I can understand the concept of warming them slightly in the microwave, but it changes the texture of the bun and takes away the fresh-from-the oven feel. The microwave has a tendency to go from zero to 1000 in 10 seconds, and all of a sudden the bun is steaming hot, too hot to touch, and isn’t enjoyable to eat either. Personally, I prefer my hot cross buns freshly baked. And now I’m just bragging that I get to enjoy this for the entire month of April (lucky me!).

Kimmy Gastmeier, Cherry Moon, Sydney
I toast because I love the crisp edges and I’m not a fan of microwaves. But there’s also another way. I love to sit a hot cross bun – cut in half with a generous amount of Pepe Saya butter – on the ledge on the woodfire oven so the butter gently melts while the edges of the hot cross bun crisp up.

Alex Crawford, The Sugar Man, Adelaide
Toasting is where it’s at for me. Always toast it! Or heat it in the oven. When buns are put in the microwave, the moisture in the bun heats up too quickly and it all escapes via steam as soon as you take it out of the microwave. That’s why you’re sometimes left with dry buns of steel when you slice after microwaving. Also, microwaves are a one-way ticket to rubbery buns, and that’s no fun. Microwaves are where hot cross buns go to die a merciless, miserable death.

Toasting not only caramelises the sugars in the fruit, but it gives the bun flavour while trapping some moisture inside so you’re not left with a dry rubbery mess. Plus, slicing the bun in half for toasting gives you more surface area to smother with butter, and that can only be a good thing.

Sometimes if I am feeling particularly decadent, I will do this: brown a stick of butter in a pan, and when it’s nice and foamy, place your sliced bun (open-side down) into the pan. Jiggle your buns around in the pan to help them soak up all the butter and when the surface is nice and toasty, remove from the pan and finish with a drizzle of maple syrup and/or a dollop of cream or ice-cream. It's the perfect follow up breakfast for a sore [hungover] head.

Lachlan Bisset, North Street Store, Perth
I toast my hot cross buns, I like that caramelisation: crunchy on the outside, squishy on the inside. Put it under the grill for a short time at high heat. Toasters never get hot enough. Having said that, I love microwaved bread. One of my earliest bread memories was having a microwave Vegemite roll at the deli that we used to go fruit and veg shopping. I would have been two or three. It was a little Vegemite bap, wrapped in clingfilm and zapped for 20 seconds or so, just enough to make it squishy.

If you want the best HCB in Sydney, check out our guide here. And here’s Melbourne’s guide.

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