Buns, Hot Cross
INGREDIENTS for 2 dozen buns.-2 lbs. of flour, 1/21 lb. of sugar, 1 wineglassful of yeast, 1 pint of milk, lb. of butter, 1 lb. of currants, teaspoonful of salt, 1 teaspoonful of mixed spice. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 10d.
Mix the flour and sugar, spice and currants; make a hole in the middle of the flour, and put in a glassful of thick yeast and the milk, warmed; make a batter of the surrounding milk and flour, and set the pan covered before the fire, till the leaven begins to ferment. Put to the mass the butter melted, and enough milk to make a soft paste of all the flour. Form the buns, and lay them a little distance apart on buttered tins to rise for 1/21 an hour.
Cross them with a knife and bake in a quick oven.
TIME.-20 minutes to bake.
SEASONABLE on Good Friday.
A straightforward enriched sponge-and-dough bun, though the printed fractions have been mangled in transcription and need judgement before you start.
- The broken fractions"1/21 lb. of sugar" and "1/21 an hour" are corrupted half-signs: read them as 1/2 lb sugar (about 1 cup) and half an hour. The butter is printed with no quantity at all; 1/2 lb (8 oz) to 2 lb flour gives the dough the standard proportions of a spiced bun. The currants are printed as "1 lb.", which is generous against 2 lb of flour and may itself be a mangled half-sign. Treat both as uncertain.
- A wineglassful of yeastThis means liquid brewer's barm, roughly 2 fl oz of thick, active ferment. For 2 lb (about 7 cups) flour, use 2 teaspoons instant yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry, whisked into the warmed milk.
- The milk is splitOnly part of the pint goes into the initial well to make the sponge; the rest, plus the melted butter, is worked in after the leaven has risen. Warm the milk to blood heat, no hotter, and let the melted butter cool before it goes in, or the heat will kill the yeast.
- A quick oven425-450F. Twenty minutes at that heat suits a bun of about 3 oz; the currants and sugar will colour fast, so check at 15 minutes and drop to 400F if they are darkening before the centres set.
- Crossing with a knifeBeeton scores the cross rather than piping it. A slashed cross opens and blurs as the bun proves and bakes; if you want the sharp white cross, pipe a paste of flour and water over the risen buns instead, which is later practice.
- Mixed spiceBritish mixed spice: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, coriander, ginger, sometimes clove. Pumpkin pie spice is the nearest supermarket equivalent. One teaspoon in 2 lb flour is restrained by modern taste; two is defensible.
- No glazeThe recipe gives none. The characteristic shine comes from brushing the buns straight from the oven with a sugar-and-milk syrup or warmed apricot glaze.
- Yield and keepingTwo dozen buns, best the day they are baked. Second-day buns split and toasted are the traditional use, and stale ones were long the basis of bread pudding.
Spiced, currant-studded buns marked with a cross are tied in England specifically to Good Friday, and Beeton's terse "SEASONABLE on Good Friday" reflects a trade that was for centuries seasonal rather than year-round. A London ordinance of the late sixteenth century is commonly cited as restricting the sale of spiced bread to Good Friday, Christmas and burials, which would have protected the bakers' guilds as much as the feast; the connection is traditional and often repeated rather than firmly documented for the buns in their present form. The cross is generally read as the crucifixion, though older folk belief credited Good Friday buns with keeping off illness and shipwreck, and hard-baked ones were hung from kitchen rafters through the year. What the recipe itself records is method: a wet sponge set before the open fire to ferment, enriched with butter only once the leaven was lively, which is how a Victorian kitchen without reliable warmth or packaged yeast got a soft bun out of ordinary flour.