Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Hot Cross Buns & other sticky English things.


When we had a birthday afternoon tea at my aunt's house, there was always sticky bun. Sometimes iced, sometimes glazed, always with fruit. We would slice it thick with lots of butter and it was always very soft and squashy. Easter Hot Cross Buns are just a ceremonial variation on the theme. I think of afternoon tea and sticky bun as being very English - but I haven't found anything to support this theory - please correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, I'm going to enter it in Sam's 'Fish & Quips' event, and hope she's often enjoyed a bit of bun with a nice cup of afternoon tea.

We made Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, not without some trepidation. They involve gelatine and yeast, both ingredients that make me nervous. They turned out really well, and we even managed to add the crosses and glaze with a minimum of fuss. We used the recipe from Donna Hay's Classics 2, except that we forgot to add all the sugar. They turned out really well anyway.
The only other thing to add is that they taste much, much better the day they are baked. They go stale very quick.

Hope you all had a great Easter!

5 comments:

Maggie said...

Oh, they look delicious. I recently posted a recipe for using leftover Hot Cross Buns, you might find this useful!

Red Dirt Mummy said...

MMMMM... these look fab! I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I tried your pizza dough and we all LOVED it. We'll be making that one again! Thanks for sharing such a yummy recipe.

Rosie said...

Really lovely!

There was a little place in Bath near where I lived in the UK that had really lovely hot Cross buns. There's nothing quite like them!

Sam said...

I recently made Hot Cross Buns for the first time too. It was a challenge. I am glad yours turned out good. When they go stale you can just split them, toast them and slather each half with butter!

Thank you for helping me with my campaign to help prove English food isn't all bad!

Sam

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.