Chocolate Cranberry Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you all have a wonderful day!  I've been loving Pinterest lately, and I came across this great recipe for hot cross buns, and decided I had to make it.

I've only ever eaten hot cross buns once before, and I have to say, I wasn't at all impressed.  They were from the supermarket and were pretty gross.  I've also never baked anything with yeast before because I have an irrational fear of messing it up somehow.

But this recipe looked so good I decided it was worth it.  It was.  I am still terrified of baking with yeast though.

Chocolate Chip Cranberry Hot Cross Buns

Ingredients:

For the buns-
21 g instant dry yeast (this is 3 normal packets, or 2 1/2 packets of the organic yeast I bought since my grocery store was out of normal yeast)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
4 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup sweetened dried cranberry

For the glaze-
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp hot water

For the crosses-
1/4 cup melted white chocolate

Directions:
-Whisk the lukewarm milk, sugar and dry yeast in a small bowl. Set aside for 15 minutes. It should become frothy and increase in size (mine didn't do very much of either, but apparently it worked anyway).
-Put the dough hook on your mixer and add the flour and salt in the bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the melted butter, lightly beaten egg, frothy yeast mixture, cranberry, and chocolate chips.
-Turn the mixer on low and knead for about 5 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place it in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside in warm place for an hour or so, until the dough doubles in size.
-Line a large baking pan with parchment paper.
-Once the dough has risen, knock it down.  Divide the dough evenly into 15-18 balls and place them close together on the baking tray.
-Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cover the hot cross buns with plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 20 minutes.
-Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. While the buns are baking, prepare your glaze.
For the glaze, dissolve the sugar in the hot water.
-Once the buns are cooked, remove them from the oven and quickly brush them with a few coats of the glaze.
-To make the crosses, melt the white chocolate in the microwave in 30 second bursts on medium, stirring in between. Put the chocolate into a small ziploc bag, snip off the end and pipe crosses across the chocolate chip buns.