Six To Try: Hot Cross Cakes, Crullers, Lamingtons and Everything but Buns

Every year it feels like Melbourne bakers get more and more creative with their hot cross buns. While some, like All Are Welcome’s Boris Portnoy, stick to the classics – “we don’t believe in thoughtless traditionalism, but when it comes to hot cross buns, this is a carefully considered choice,” he tells Broadsheet – others, like Lumos Bakery’s Carina La Delfa, spend months planning out special flavours. La Delfa says she started research and development for hot cross bun season in November and, in addition to traditional buns, is offering pistachio-filled buns and a raspberry and white choc version.

While we’re suckers for traditional hot cross buns (and rounded up some of Melbourne’s best here), and love it when bakers get creative with flavours, we can’t help but notice the takes are straying further away from the original, with many creative chefs and bakers creating hot cross bun-inspired treats that are not buns at all, but include cakes, crullers and lamingtons.

Here are six hot cross bun-inspired treats from around the city. Not cross buns, if you will.

Hot Cross Lamington

Tokyo Lamington – known for its playful twists on Aussie cakes – is offering three creations for Easter: hot cross lamington, lamington hot cross bun and yuzu hot cross bun. The lamington is the venue’s take on the classic bakery treat; here, the team takes two slices of spiced classic sponge cake, sandwiches them together with a filling made of cinnamon vanilla cream and mixed fruit, dips the whole thing in a white chocolate sauce, rolls it in spiced cookie crumbs and tops it off with a white chocolate cross.

Hot Cross Cruller

Lune Croissanterie founder Kate Reid opened Moon Cruller in 2021. Moon Cruller specialises in its namesake pastry – a ring-shaped doughnut-like creation made from fried choux pastry – and was partially inspired by legendary New York pastry chef Claudia Fleming.

For the hot cross cruller, the bakery’s signature choux dough has been laced with spices, Kirsch-soaked dried fruit and citrus peel. Once deep-fried, it’s covered in a fruity glaze and finished with a delicately piped cross made from royal icing.

Hot Cross Cake

CBD and South Yarra bakery Le Yeahllow is known for making hyper-realistic cakes that look like other objects (the most notable being its Jeff Koons-ian balloon puppy cake). It’s unsurprising, then, that the team has released a trompe l’oeil hot cross cake. Made to look like hot cross buns, it is actually an entremets cake with a hot cross bun sponge in the centre topped with a layer of chocolate cremeux and then encased in all-spiced whipped ganache. The cakes are available as a single “bun” or in larger slabs of six, nine, 16 or 24.

Hot Cross Ice-Cream Sandwich

While a traditional hot cross bun is still technically part of this creation, it’s elevated to the next level with the addition of ice-cream or gelato. This ice-cream sandwich from Pidapipo is exactly as described on the label – a hot cross bun sliced in two and filled with a scoop of your favourite gelato.

Doughnut Cross Bun

We’re not sure we’re ready for Rustica’s doughnut version of the hot cross bun. Sourdough doughnuts are fried and then filled with a generous amount of brandy crème and covered in sugar before a thin white cross is piped on top.

Hot Cross Bao

International restaurant chain Din Tai Fung arrived in Australia in 2008 and opened its first Melbourne location, at Emporium, in 2015. The group is perhaps best-known for its xiao long bao, and this year the group has introduced hot cross bao. The pillowy bao are made using the restaurant’s bao recipe from Taiwan and are combined with raisins and chocolate chips. They’re finished off with a puffy cross made from a plain version of the dough.

More of a traditionalist? Check out our guide to the city’s best hot cross buns.