Warm the milk to blood temperature, sift the flour and grate in the lemon zest to the flour.

Add the spices and salt to the flour, when the milk is luke warm add the yeast and sugar, and leave the milk for 10 minutes or until the yeast activates and gets foamy.

When the milk mixture is foamy add it to the flour, then add the melted butter and the egg.

Mix the dough with your hands in the bowl for a minute before tipping onto your work surface and start to knead. It is a really sticky dough so you will get messy, or use a stand mixer with a dough hook if you prefer. you can add some flour as you knead for about 10 minutes but do try to only add a little at a time when you just can't handle the mess, try to use a bench scraper with one hand and slap the dough onto the work surface then scoop it up and slap it down again.

In these images you can see me using a bench scraper, dusting my hand with flour to make the sticky dough more manageable and after several minutes the dough starts to develop glutens and it much easier to knead, I like to push it away from me, scoop it up and fold it back over then repeat.

When the dough is fully kneaded and slightly elastic, roll it out to a disc, add the dried fruit in the centre then fold the edges into the centre

When the edges have completely encased the fruit, continue to knead for a few more minutes. It is ready when the fruit starts to come out and you feel the fruit is evenly distributed throughout the dough

Time to proof the dough, lightly oil a bowl, turn the dough around in the bowl to coat it with the oil, then cover with a plate or some cling film. proof it until it has risen well and is puffy, turn it out onto a floured surface

Punch the dough back, form it into a ball then divide it up as evenly as you can into quarters

Divide the quarters into 3 to create 12 balls of dough, shape them with a cupped hand into smooth balls, this technique takes a little practice but just try to get them as smooth as you can

Arrange the balls on baking trays with a small gap but close enough so that when they proof again they will just tough each other, this creates what's called a kissing crust when they bake. Drape some oiled cling film very delicately over the top making sure that is isn't tight, I like to lift the plastic up a little like a tent so that the buns can rise properly.

While the buns are proofing again, make the flour paste which forms the cross, add some cold water to some plain flour and beat until you have a smooth but thick enough paste that you can pipe onto the buns. The consistency should be like a double cream

I like to put a plastic piping bag into a glass which makes pouring the paste into it easier, you can also use a plastic bag, snip of the end to give a small hole to pipe, then pipe across the buns in a straight line

Here's a better view of piping the crosses onto the buns, making sure that you dip the end of the piping bag down into the gap where the buns meet, this makes sure that the cross covers the whole bun when the bake. then turn the tray 90 degrees and complete the crosses. Preheat you oven to 200c or 392f

They should take around 20 minutes to bake, you can give their bottoms a tap for that slight hollow sound, let them cool on a wire rack. While they are cooling down warm up the apricot jam with a splash of water in it and brush this liberally over the buns to give them the most gorgeous glaze. When they have completely cooled you can tear them apart, you can see that kissing crust in the last image

Now just cut one in half, spread some butter on it and get stuck in. These images are taken from my YouTube video, if you like why not check it out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omw3G1R0xko&t=528s