Paul Hollywood: How to make the best hot cross buns

"The first thing you do is make your base dough. You knead it until you can pull a bit off and you can see it’s quite elastic. It needs to stretch. One trick is, if you get tired of kneading it, leave it in a bowl for a bit to rise for 20 minutes. That'll help the process along."

2) Texture

"The best thing to do is hold your stretched dough towards the light – you should be able to read the newspaper through it. You also need to look for the webbing – that’s the gluten strands bonding together. If you’ve got webbing in the dough you know it’s right. The thinner you can get that the better."

3) By hand vs machine mixed

"A dough hook on a mixer will be quicker, but mixing the dough by hand will give you a good feel for what the dough’s like. Then, if you’re ever caught short and you haven’t got a mixer, you’ll still be able to make them. Plus, if you mix it by hand, you’ll get to remember what the dough should feel like when it's ready."

4) Spices

"Cinnamon works really well, and a bit of nutmeg to an extent. I always use fresh fruit in mine. The original recipes used fresh fruit, it’s only quite recently we’ve started using dried fruit. Apples, oranges, tangerines, zest of lemon and orange and cinnamon works really well together.

5) Non-traditional

"Morello cherries and chocolate is a great combination for a non-traditional twist."

Try our chocolate & spice hot cross buns.

6) Leftovers

"You can make a great summer pudding with hot cross buns. Alternatively, you can bake with them and make a delicious bread and butter pudding. What I’d do is put some white chocolate chips in there as well, then slice up some hot cross buns and add the zest of an orange."

Try our bun & butter pudding.