Coles stir up #HotCrossBunGate with new Australia Day hybrid

Well, it seems #hotcrossbungate rages on. There's always the outrage over the January release of hot cross buns (this season welcomed the launch of the Coles Boxing Day buns with an unprecedented December 26 release) and every year we wait with baited breath to see who is doing the most outrageous new bun flavours.

But this year Coles has jumped into a whole new arena, launching a lamington flavoured hot cross bun in time for Australia Day.

Yes, a lamington flavoured hot cross bun.

Will hybrid wonders never cease?

And this, hot off the back of the lamington burger, in which a burger joint in Adelaide dared to use a lamington as a bun and met with all sorts of incredulity, while over at Smith’s a new lamington-flavoured packet of crisps was met with mixed responses.

But at 9Honey we love nothing more than a hybrid food investigation, so intrepid tasters that we are, we jumped in to try the new lamington hot cross bun.

To start with it's a nice, soft bun — just as you'd hope for in a hot cross experience — with the expected cross on top. But here's where it departs radically from previous Easter bun flavours… this one is infused with raspberry jelly jam dots, made with chocolate and chocolate chips, and laced with flakes of toasted shaved coconut.

There certainly is a lamington flavour to it, but the texture had office taste-testers perplexed. Several saying the flavour made them miss the 'cake consistency' of the original.

The overall consensus was that it's a fun flavour to try and certainly unlike anything anyone has ever tasted in a hot cross bun before. But, it's not really a hot cross bun in any respect other than the cross on top.

We applaud the flavour innovation, bringing two iconic treats together for a modern twist on old favourites.

If you're a stickler for tradition, maybe stick to the originals for both, but if you love to try a good hybrid, we dare you to give it a go. It'll certainly shake both the typical Australian Day and Easter flavours up this year.

And who could possibly be against playing out all the fun of both Aussie Day and Easter flavours for as long as possible and in as many guises as you can.

The Internet, for the most part, is not displeased about this combination either.

Now butter those lamington-cross-buns and share them around.

The lamington hot cross buns are available in Coles stores now for a limited time.