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Hot Cross Buns
Sift together one quart of flour, onehalf teaspoon salt, one cup of sugar, three scant teaspoons baking powder.
Rub in one-half cup butter, then add onehalf pound cleaned currants, one-half teaspoon nutmeg, one-quarter pound cut citron, one-quarter pound seeded raisins, one-half teaspoon allspice. Beat two eggs, add one-half cup milk, and stir into the dry mixture, adding sufficient milk to mix to a firm dough. Mold into round buns, lay two inches apart on greased pans, brush with milk. Cut cross on each, sprinkle cut with granulated sugar, and bake in hot oven.
This is a chemically leavened hot cross bun — closer to a fruited scone or rock cake than the yeasted, enriched bun most people expect. Handle it accordingly: mix briefly, shape quickly, bake straight away.
- The hinge: work fastBaking powder starts reacting as soon as the milk goes in, so the dough should be mixed, shaped and in the oven within a few minutes. Kneading or resting it costs you the rise and toughens the crumb.
- A quart of flourFlour was measured by volume: a quart is 4 cups, roughly 1 lb / about 480 g of all-purpose. Note that the recipe sifts the flour together with the salt, sugar and baking powder rather than specifying a sift before measuring; measure lightly, or you will end up with considerably more flour than intended.
- "Hot oven"Roughly 400–425F (200–220C). Buns this size take about 15–20 minutes; they are done when firm on top and lightly browned at the edges of the cross.
- Fruit weightsHalf a pound of currants is about 1½ cups; a quarter pound each of citron and raisins is roughly ¾ cup apiece. That is a heavily fruited dough — a full pound of fruit to roughly a pound of flour — and the buns will be dense and sweet.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced tubs around the winter holidays and increasingly hard to find. Candied orange or mixed peel substitutes directly.
- "Rub in" the butterSame technique as pastry or biscuits: cut cold butter into the dry mix until it resembles coarse crumbs. Food processor pulses work, but stop before it pastes.
- Milk to mixThe half cup is a starting point only — "sufficient milk" typically means another ¼ to ½ cup depending on your flour. Aim for a dough stiff enough to hold a round shape without slumping.
- The crossCut with a knife, not piped in flour paste: the recipe says to cut the cross and sprinkle granulated sugar into the cut. Cut it shallowly, just before baking.
- YieldAbout 16–18 buns from this quantity, depending on how large you mold them.
Hot cross buns belong to Good Friday, and their marked tops are generally traced to a much older tradition of scoring bread before baking; the specifically Christian reading of the cross is the one that stuck in English bakeries, along with a body of folklore claiming the buns would not mold and could cure the sick. What is notable here is the leavening: baking powder eliminates the two rises and several hours of attention a proper yeasted bun demands. American home cookery leaned hard on chemical leaven from the mid-nineteenth century onward, and by the time this book was compiled that shift had reached even Easter baking. The result is honest but different — a quick bread in bun form rather than the soft, springy bread of an English bakery.