Buns and Rusks
2 cups scalded milk 1/2 cup butter and lard mixed 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup sifted potato 2 yeast cakes in 1/2 cup water 3 eggs 6 cups Gold Medal flour Place sugar, butter, salt and potato in a mixing bowl, add scalded milk and mix well. When lukewarm add dissolved yeast cake and 4 cups of Gold Medal flour, beat light into a batter; add the eggs well beaten, add flour enough to make a stiff dough. Turn onto moulding board well dusted with flour, knead till smooth and elastic to the touch. Return to mixing bowl and let rise, when full of bubbles cut down and when light again shape one-half the dough into small balls; place close together in a greased pan, raise slowly at first and when very light brush over with a syrup made of 1 tablespoon cream and 1 of sugar boiled together one minute. Currants of raisins may be added or 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Bake from twenty to twenty-five minutes in a hot oven HOT CROSS BUNS: Shape remainder of the dough into small balls when light; with a sharp knife cut two gashes at right angles on the top or press deep folds with a long pencil. When nearly baked glaze, dredge the cross with granulated sugar, repeat the glazing and dredging until the cross is filled with sugar and return to the oven. Often cinnamon is mixed with the sugar used to dredge the top of the buns. A half cup of currants could be worked into the dough when kneading.
A rich, sweet yeast dough that splits into two batches: plain glazed buns and hot cross buns. The ingredient list and the method disagree in one place, and the yeast quantity is far above modern practice.
- Missing saltSalt appears in the method but not in the ingredient list. Use about 2 teaspoons for 6 cups of flour; without it the dough tastes flat and rises too fast.
- "Sifted potato"This means cooked potato pressed through a sieve or ricer — half a cup, packed lightly, cooled. It is not potato flour or dried potato flakes. The starch helps keep the crumb moist and soft longer than a plain milk dough.
- Yeast cakesYeast cakes of the period were usually compressed fresh yeast, about 0.6 oz each, though dry yeast cakes were also sold; two compressed cakes is roughly 1 1/4 oz, or about 2 packets (4 1/2 teaspoons) of active dry. That will drive the dough hard; one packet and a longer rise gives better flavor.
- Scalding the milkScalding was standard with raw milk, both for safety and because something in unscalded milk was found to weaken gluten. With pasteurized milk you only need it warm — heat to about 110F and go straight on, but let it cool to lukewarm if you have brought it to a simmer.
- Butter and lard mixedHalf a cup total, in any proportion. All butter works; lard gives a slightly shorter, more tender crumb. Have it soft, not melted, when it meets the hot milk.
- Hot oven400 to 425F. Twenty to twenty-five minutes at that heat suits buns set close together in a pan, which steam each other and stay pale on the sides.
- The glazeOne tablespoon cream and one of sugar boiled a minute is barely a tablespoon of syrup — enough to brush a dozen buns thinly. Applying it before baking, as the first batch directs, will darken the tops; watch them after fifteen minutes.
- The sugar crossFor the hot cross buns the glazing and dredging are repeated near the end of baking, the buns coming out of the oven and going back in between coats, building a crusted sugar cross rather than the piped flour-paste cross now standard. Work quickly.
- YieldThe full quantity makes roughly three dozen small buns, split evenly between the two styles.
Potato in a sweet yeast dough is a long-standing practice in home baking: potato starch holds water, feeds the yeast, and keeps a rich bun soft, which mattered when bread was baked once or twice a week rather than bought daily. The hot cross bun itself is tied to Good Friday in English tradition, and the marked top is often said to derive from folk tradition rather than from any single baker or documented church practice. The instruction to build the cross out of dredged sugar rather than pipe it in flour paste is a notable detail, and the branded flour in the ingredient list suggests that this recipe came from a milling company promoting its own product to home bakers.