When it comes to supermarket hot cross buns, shoppers should stock up at Coles according to Australian consumer group Choice, which evaluated 19 traditional, chocolate and gluten-free varieties in its annual taste test.
Judges blindly tasted toasted and untoasted versions of fruit and choc-chip hot cross buns from Aldi, Bakers Delight, Coles, Costco, IGA and Woolworths.
Coles took out the top spots in both traditional and chocolate categories: Coles Finest Luxurious Fruit Hot Cross Buns received a score of 75%, and Coles Bakery Easter Choc Chip Hot Cross Buns received the highest overall score of 82%.
“One of the things we picked up with the chocolate one is the aroma,” said culinary judge Brigid Treloar, who also judges chocolate in the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show competition. “When it was toasted you could really smell the chocolate, and as the chocolate melts it gives you even more of that luscious texture and chocolatey flavour.”
Treloar and judges Eddie Stewart, co-owner of Tokyo Lamington in Sydney, and Choice content creator Jane Bardell, found both categories of hot cross buns were “equally good untoasted as they were toasted”, which is not always the case, said Treloar.
“The winning [traditional] one had a good array of fruit, like candied orange peel, apricots and cranberries, so you get more texture and more variety of flavour as you’re eating it,” she said.
Flavour, aroma, appearance and texture were all taken into consideration. For Treloar, the best traditional buns were light, not too dense with evenly distributed fruit. “You want your fruit to be plump and soft,” she said. “Being a traditionalist, I also want to see a good consistent cross.”
The winning Coles Finest Luxurious Fruit Hot Cross Buns were more than double the cost of those in second and third place, priced $1.38 a bun compared with runners up Aldi Bakers Life Fruit Hot Cross Buns at 67c a bun (with a score of 72%) and Coles Easter Traditional Fruit Hot Cross Buns, 73c a bun (scored 66%). Coles’ first place chocolate chip bun is 73c a bun.
The final expert rating was determined with the judges’ scores as well as a nutrition score based on the buns’ health star rating, calculated after the blind taste test.
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Overall, judges found an improvement in choc-chip varieties and gluten-free options compared with previous years. “Gluten-free ones are much better than they used to be,” said Treloar. “They’re good enough to be able to compete against the traditional ones, but it’s still very hard for them to climb up the ladder.” Aldi Bakers Life Gluten Free Fruit Hot Cross Buns took first place for gluten-free, with a score of 68%.
Aldi’s chocolate buns also came second in the chocolate category, with its Aldi Bakers Life Chocolate Hot Cross Buns with Milk Chocolate Chips, priced 67c a bun, scoring 70%.
“As we blind test we don’t know how much the buns cost,” said Treloar. “Everybody eats with their eyes first, so I look for good height, a nice dome, sheen, and I don’t want the crosses to be too hard so that when you bite into them they flake and fall off.”
Choice’s editorial director Mark Serrels said the total number of hot cross buns tested had fallen, down from 29 types in 2024. “It was a tough decision but we wanted to test the main ones people would buy in store,” he said.
Choice also ran a separate “not cross buns” test in February to evaluate the growing flavour combinations on the market, but Treloar said it was important to separate the traditional Easter treat from the “weird and wonderful” styles out there. “It’s a little bit like sacrilege if you do something else to it,” she said.
For purists, the traditional way to eat a hot cross bun is toasted with butter – but judges don’t want to “dilute the flavour” with spreads in the taste test, said Treloar. “I want to taste the spice. You also don’t want butter softening the texture because one of the things we’re testing is how well it toasts. You don’t want a hot cross bun to fall into a ball of dough when you start to eat it, that’s unpleasant.”
