Hot Uncrossed Buns
February 7th, 2008
The other day I was discussing the many traditional Carnevale and Lenten sweets that people make around me. I think they are supposed to quit making them once Lent starts, but they don’t. You almost can’t walk into a home this time of year without the perfume of hot oil and sugar winding around you and wrapping you up for the fat farm.
Everybody is making them and posting about them except me. I am cajoled and teased and blackmailed into tasting them constantly and I can’t bear to have them at home as well. I’m asking around for someone who is willing to be followed and photographed so I can publish it for you, but if you look around the blogging world for Cenci, Castagnole, Fiochi, Chiaccherare, and the hundreds of other words used to describe the hundreds of versions up and down the boot, you will definitely find them.
I remembered then that I loved a seasonal sweet traditional to my culture. The mighty Hot Cross Bun! I was immediately told that it is not the season until Good Friday. Uh! Something that good eaten only three days of the year? Not in my world! I decided that if I didn’t put the frosting crosses on until Good Friday I could have them right away and even take them to my hosts this weekend for an easy breakfast.
I looked at loads of recipes on line and in old cookbooks. The cookbook recipes were way too simplified for me. They wouldn’t produce what I remembered from decades ago. Delia of British fame has a good looking recipe, but my scale is broken so I needed a US recipe that doesn’t need weighing.
The recipe I used in the end was from Bella Online where they also have the nursery rhyme and the story behind this old fashioned sweet roll. If you agree that mine are prettier than theirs, it’s because I added an egg yolk wash before raising the formed buns. I think mine are a bit too big, too. I would make 16 of them from this recipe instead of 12.
The above is how they look in the very welcome sunshine that is pouring over my counters today. I have already eaten two and given one to Olga. We are agreed that these are the best we’ve ever had– mind you she’s never had them before.
Entry Filed under: Beauty, dessert, fruit, dolce, bread, easy, cookery, baking, Hot Cross Buns
7 Comments Add your own
1. amanda | February 7th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Wow, you read my mind, only yesterday my youngest was asking if we\’d ever have any Hot Cross Buns again. I love buns of any description but these are among my favs, we used to eat them for weeks on end in England where some of the larger supermarkets seem to sell them all year round. I have made the Delia ones in the past and they are mouth wateringly good, so good we ate the whole lot as soon as they came out of the oven. That\’s what I find so disappointing about home baking, it takes ages for the rising and the cooking and then it\’s all gone in seconds. Well in my house it is.
2. admin | February 7th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
You have superior numbers! But if your oven is big enough, you could double the recipe? That would make 32 nice sized ones. (I used sultanas and diced fruit peel in mine, not unobtainable currants.)
I thought it was pretty quick and easy. Ten minutes to mix it up, ignore while rising, then another 15 to knead and form and ignore again. Cooked 15 mins. Cool and glaze.
Two was all I could manage. Really. Freeze them FAST!
3. bleeding espresso | February 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I’ve never had ‘em, but you’re making a good case for whipping up a batch.
Yours are very pretty–all golden and stuff :)
4. eg | February 7th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Yours look much better. Still, how but no fruity bits and lots of icing?
5. admin | February 7th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
The fruity bits are there! It’s probably the brilliant sunshine in your eyes that keeps you from seeing it.
No cross until Good Friday. Meanwhile, it does have a sugar glaze.
6. Snowpea | February 7th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Jeez you’re making this diet of mine harder, not easier! LOL They look astoundingly good.
7. Mikeachim | February 7th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I share your passion for raisiny buyns, Crossed or Uncrossed.
My local supermarket has the unusual good sense of making a Hot Uncrossed Loaf. (It’s not called that, but that’s what it is). Sliced and toasted for breakfast, it’s truly amazingly amazing.
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