Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns

Just  imagine the crosses please.

Every year for a good many years I try to make hot cross buns and every year there is just something not quite right about them.

We don't as a family do much to celebrate Easter. In England when we grew up it was considered mostly a religious holiday and commercialism hadn't quite crept in as it has done on so many other holidays. We attended special church services and events ; there were a few items that came in the shops such as chocolate eggs, an extremely expensive and rare treat at that time and of course. on Good Friday, hot cross buns. We all knew the rhyme,

Hot cross Buns,

Hot cross Buns,

1 a penny, 2 a penny,

Hot cross buns,

If you have no daughter ,

Give them to your sons,

1 a penny, 2 a penny,

Hot cross buns.

So I guess I try to keep the tradition going. I have tried all kinds of recipes. Some from England. Some from the USA. Some have been terrible – a total disaster. Some have been as huge as dinner plates,- some have been like rocks,- some have been almost right but not quite so I'll keep trying I expect.

Yes I could go to the local English shop and buy some . They even sell them here in Texas now. But you know I think the real reason I like to cook them is the smell while they are cooking. It is a smell that evokes memories of past years and those lovely buns, hot and streaming with butter on a Good Friday morning.

One of the simple pleasures of life.

This year was no different. I followed a real English recipe. I had to convert all the metric measurements to fit my cups and ounces and even to change them a bit . I don't think you can get caster sugar here and even the regular sugar is different in a slight way. I put the mix in the bread machine to form the dough and when it was 3/4^th the way through, horror of horrors, I looked in the machine and it was a thick puddle of liquid not a solid mass of dough. I quickly added a cup more flour and prayed. At the end of the dough cycle, the mass that came out was, shall we say, rather fluid ,so I added more flour and kneeded the whole thing in my very sticky hands until it adhered together. I formed the buns , let the whole thing rise , cooked them and got “okay” buns just not RIGHT buns.

 You will also notice , NO crosses. That's because you are supposed to put icing crosses on after they cool off but then they wouldn't be HOT would they and if you heat them, the icing would melt.

So I prefer “hot” rather than “cross”.

But they taste fine especially with a big pat of butter.