Hot Cross Buns | Right from the Start

I love Hot Cross Buns. Years ago there was a bakery near my flat that baked the very best Hot Cross Buns, huge, glazed and sticky. I am yet to find anywhere here that sells them, so we decided to try making our own. It is quite a long process but definitely worth it and a nice introduction to bread making for the children.

You will Need

Makes 24 nb. 1 cup = 1/2 pint or 1/2 lb or 230 g (approx.)

3 sachets of yeast

3/4 cup of warm water

1 1/8 cup of warm milk

1/2 cup butter (melted)

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

6 cups of flour (2 of bread flour and 4 of plain/all purpose flour)

1 1/2 cups oats

1 1/2 cups raisins

1 1/2 beaten eggs

Glaze

1 cup icing (powdered) sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp. milk

Instructions

Dissolve the yeast in the water and sprinkle in a little sugar
Melt butter

3. Combine milk, butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon

4. Stir in 1 cup of flour, oats, raisins, egg and dissolved yeast.

5. Keep adding flour until it makes a soft dough. Knead, place in a greased bowl and cover for 1 hour.

6. Press it down then let it rest.

7. Form into balls and add a dough cross. Let them rise uncovered for 45 minutes

8. Glaze with egg white and bake at 400 degrees F/ Gas mark 6 for 10-12 mins

9. When cooled combine the ingredients for the glaze and brush on the top. Leave for 5 minutes.

They were very popular; I may never get away with a shop bought bun again.

When does the Easter Bunny come, is it tonight or tomorrow?

Easter Bunny? *slightly panicking. I have no idea I’m not sure how it works here, we didn’t have the Easter Bunny in England.

Yes we did.

Okay, so I bought them all an Easter Egg, but I don’t remember saying it came from the Easter Bunny….. now what? They don’t have large Easter eggs here like we do at home, the odd chocolate rabbit or two, other than that everything is small to fill up little plastic eggs. I’ve just filled all our plastic eggs with Cadbury Mini Eggs and miniature Cream Eggs for our Easter Egg hunt tomorrow. She saw me do it so I can’t say the Easter Bunny brought those. I have a pack of Cream Eggs, that will have to do. Perhaps the American Easter Bunny is a meany…… or maybe he left some in England for when we go visiting…….. or maybe he left them outside and the bears ate them….(okay that one’s a little cruel).

As with every other festival Easter is different. The first shock is that we don’t have a bank holiday or any time off school (we have another week of school before Spring Break). Good Friday is a something or nothing day, you can’t even find hot cross buns (my neighbour tells me she has never had one and is not really sure what they are). This year I had to make my own, a long job but worth it.

Easter Egg hunts are really popular. The kids hunt for little plastic eggs with goodies inside but are told in advance how many they are allowed to collect so it isn’t as excessive as Hallowe’en. Decorating real eggs is also popular. My neighbour had painted eggs and decorated them with stickers and the children were going to hunt for real eggs. We went on a local Easter Egg hunt this morning and one at pre-school yesterday. In school Easter wasn’t celebrated at all, not even by giving out eggs. They are very careful to be equal to all cultures here.

The best thing about Easter weekend is that we have sunshine. I don’t think I’ve ever had my shorts on during March in the UK (although I think it’s unusual here too). Spring is in the air.

Hopefully the sunshine and the egg hunt tomorrow will compensate for the skinflint American Easter Bunny.