Auckland bakery bags best hot cross bun honours

Photo: Daily Bread

A “perfect” sourdough hot cross bun made in Auckland is Aotearoa’s best, according to judges of a national competition.

Daily Bread in Auckland have taken top honours for the second year in a row at Baking New Zealand’s Great NZ Hot Cross Bun Contest, which was judged in Palmerston North last week.

Head baker Patrick Welzenbach said this year’s entry was “perfect”.

“I’m super stoked and super proud. I don’t have the words for it actually.

“Normally I’m just 90 percent happy about the finished bun, but this year I couldn’t make it any better.

“I couldn’t do it without the team. One guy did the crosses perfectly and super white and straight, another baker made the perfect dough and another made the absolute shiniest glaze. Everyone had a small part to make the complete product and everyone is so proud that we have won for a second year.”

Daily Bread’s buns use an Italian ‘lievito madre’ style starter (a technique used in making Italian classic festive breads like panettone and Columba).

Welzenbach says this makes them lighter and fluffier than traditional sourdough buns, as well as making them less sour.

This year’s recipe contains more butter than the previous iteration, which helps the dough retain moisture and stay fresh-tasting for longer.

“Customer expectation is that a bun to last a week, but we don’t want to add any preservatives or additives, we want it to be natural.”

The bakery also makes its own candied peel and orange glaze in-house, from New Zealand oranges.

Photo: Nada Bakery

“We don’t want to waste anything, so we make the candied peel from the skins of the oranges that we juice in the bakery.”

Daily Bread makes around 7000 hot cross buns a day for three weeks over the Easter period, doubling their output on Easter Thursday.

In spite of this, Welzenbach says he still looks forward to eating them on Easter Sunday.

“I love hot cross buns, they taste amazing, and I always look forward to the season. We do make the best buns in New Zealand and it’s nice to have won again.”

Wellington’s Nada Bakery, led by Michael Gray and his mother Judith Gray, took second prize in the contest with a highly spiced bun containing pimento pepper and coriander and finished with an apricot and yuzu glaze.

A bun studded with Belgian chocolate and cranberries earned third place – again for the second consecutive year – for Christchurch’s Copenhagen Bakery.