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GOOD FRIDAY BUNS (commonly called Hot Cross Buns)
Rub a quarter of a pound of butter into two pounds of flour. Add a pinch of salt; then mix a wine-glassful of fresh, thick yeast with a pint and a half of warmed milk, and stir these into the flour till it forms a light batter. Put the batter in a warm place to rise. When sufficiently risen, work into it half a pound of sugar, half a pound of currants, half a nutmeg, grated, and a quarter of an ounce of powdered mace. Knead these well into the dough, make it up into buns, and place them on buttered baking-tins. Make a cross on them with the back of a knife, brush a little clarified butter over the top, and let them stand a quarter of an hour before the fire. Bake in a good oven. When bread is made at home, hot cross buns may be made by mixing the currants, etc., with bread dough after it has risen. Time, one hour to let the dough rise; twenty minutes to bake. Sufficient for two dozen buns. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. for this quantity.
A straightforward enriched yeast dough, but the liquid quantity and the yeast measure both need translating before you start. Weigh rather than scoop: 2 lb of flour is about 900 g.
- The yeastA wine-glassful of "fresh, thick yeast" is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz of brewer's barm, perhaps the equivalent of an ounce (25 g) of fresh baker's yeast, or roughly 2-3 teaspoons of instant dried yeast; the equivalence is approximate. Modern yeast is more vigorous than barm, so watch the dough rather than the clock.
- That much milkAn imperial pint and a half is 30 fl oz, so the first stage really is a loose batter, not a dough. Expect to work in substantially more flour at the kneading stage, or hold back a third of the milk and add it as needed.
- Oven heatThe recipe says only "a good oven"; for buns that is usually taken as somewhere around 400-425F (200-220C). Twenty minutes at that heat suits buns of this size -- the batch divides into twenty-four of roughly 95-100 g -- and they should sound hollow, or read about 195F inside.
- Go easy on the maceA quarter of an ounce of powdered mace is somewhere around a tablespoon, which will dominate everything; a couple of teaspoons of fresh ground mace with the half nutmeg is nearer the effect most modern palates will want.
- Sugar in a risen doughHalf a pound of sugar added after the sponge has risen will slacken the dough noticeably and slow the yeast. Knead patiently until it comes back together before shaping.
- The crossMarking with the back of a knife is the older method and the cuts largely close during baking. The familiar raised white cross of piped flour-and-water paste is generally reckoned a later refinement, though the two methods overlapped.
- Second proofA quarter of an hour before the fire is short for a dough this heavy with sugar and fruit. Give the shaped buns 30-45 minutes in a warm room until visibly puffed.
- Yield and costTwenty-four buns, as stated. The "1s. 6d." is a period retail price and carries no useful modern equivalent.
Spiced buns marked with a cross belong to the long English tradition of eating enriched bread on Good Friday; the cross is generally traced to the crucifixion, though marking loaves with a cross to help them rise and to bless the bake is often said to be far older than any particular religious reading. Eighteenth-century London supported whole businesses on the trade, most famously the Chelsea Bun House, and the street cry "one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns" was printed as a nursery rhyme by the 1790s. Much of the Victorian baking year still ran off the household's own weekly bread-making rather than a baker's shop.