The Annual Hot Cross Bun Bake- off.

The Annual Hot cross bun bake off.

It took me by surprise this year. Easter I mean. Usually I start thinking of Easter when the shops get crowded with bunny cards and lots of pinks and blues but I guess I haven't been shopping lately.

So once I remembered I started the hunt for the recipe of the one thing I make at Easter- Hot Cross Buns.

Every year I try to make the buns I remember from my youth. Buns that were probably made at the local bakery shop but served up warm with lots of butter on Good Friday for breakfast. Yummy!

Every year, I can say since leaving England, I have been pretty much disappointed .At first you couldn't find buns to buy. I have tried all kinds of recipes , some from England some from Canada and some from the USA but I usually mess up somehow. 

One year the buns looked lovely, shiny brown with the big cross on top but tasted dreadful. Mike recognized the taste as baking soda, I had misread the recipe and put that in instead of baking powder. Another time the dough didn't rise properly and they came out like hot cross balls. One day later you could have used them to play golf if you had painted them white.. Another time all rose so well they formed one huge mass on the baking sheet and were more like a hot cross cake. I won't tell you how many times they have come out with burned bottoms and other peculiar traits.

Last year I decided I would look for a recipe to make them in the bread machine and actually found one. I think I tried it as I have written on it ' Pretty good. So I'll try that one again and hopefully they will be okay. I do remember the recipe did make rather a lot and we were eating buns for most of April!!

Postscript. Well the buns turned out pretty good. I remember to cut the dough in half and I froze ½ so we can have July 4th buns with that if I remember the dough is in the freezer.

They were a little darker than I would prefer but tasted really nice.

Happy Easter.