Hot Cross Buns

There are a few people around who remember that hot cross buns are associated with Good Friday, not Easter. This oddity - of a delicacy being associated with a fast - has parallels with the fish-feasts of southern European Christmas Eves and similar days. Like those meals, hot cross buns can technically be eaten on a fast day.

Of course their particular significance comes from the decoration with a cross, which seems to be a folkloric survival of English medieval Christianity. Other connections, such as with the panis quadratus of ancient Mediterranean food which was similarly marked, are coincidental. Sometimes a hot cross bun is just a hot cross bun.

I have made buns from this recipe every year, I think, for more than 25 years. I was surprised when living in the USA to find how few Americans knew these delightful treats. They tended to be ready converts (more so than with some Christmas fare like pudding, but that's another story), and it has been shared with a few friends in that part of the world. It is adapted from the Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class book, a supermarket check-out classic which still has its 1970s charms.

You will need two small (8"/20cm) square cake tins, or adapt with some other square-sided square or rectangular tin(s) of similar area, and an icing set (or improvise as suggested below)

Ingredients
4 cups plain (all-purpose) flour^*, plus 1/2 cup additional
1 tsp salt
3 tsp dry yeast
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup sultanas (small or golden raisins)

1/4 cup mixed candied peel, optional
60g/2 oz butter or margarine
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mixed/baking spice or garam masala
1 tsp plain gelatin
1 Tbp sugar, additional

Method
Stir yeast into lukewarm milk to dissolve. Combine flour, salt, sugar and spices. Rub in fat, add dried fruit, lightly beaten egg and milk mixture. Stir to combine, cover with a cloth and leave 40 minutes or until doubled.

Pre-heat oven to 250C/475F (hot). Punch dough down, knead well until smooth and elastic. Grease baking tins, and divide dough into 15-18 (first into three, then each third into five or six) pieces according to the size of your tins. Arrange buns in rows (2 lots of 3 x 3), or 6 x 3 in a larger rectangular pan). They should barely be touching, if at all. Stand tins in a warm place a further 15 minutes; they should visibly rise and be touching now.

Mix additional 1/2 cup flour with 1/3 cup of water (a teaspoon of cooking oil added improves texture). Pipe narrow crosses carefully onto buns; use an icing set or, if you are not so equipped, put paste into a sandwich bag or similar and cut a small hole in the corner, then squeeze paste out. This works best by moving along the whole of each row extruding a thin continuous line in one direction, then going back across each row at a right angle.

Bake in hot oven 15 minutes, or until well browned; watch for burning. While baking prepare glaze: mix together gelatine power and sugar and dissolve in 1 Tbp boiling water, stirring well. Turn buns out onto cooling rack and immediately brush tops with glaze.

^*I have used kamut flour very successfully for this recipe in recent years. In Australia the Four Leaf brand is recommended.