Hot Cross Buns

What the hell is with those lyrics? How about: who cares of you have kids? Just buy yourself a bun? Well, at least that’s what I’d be thinking. And why do the girls get first dibs on the buns? Hm. Questions that will never be answered.

Anyway, Good Friday is Hot Cross Bun Day. I know that we had these growing up at least once or twice (store-bought, of course) but this kind of dough with the raisins and the icing I associate more with New Year’s Pretzel. NOTE TO SELF: THIS YEAR MAKE NEW YEAR’S PRETZEL.

Anyway, I was first inspired by this card from the Marguerite Patten recipe card set:

But I looked at the recipe and was all, huh? what? I thought that the crosses were made with icing, not pie crust. PIE CRUST? Ugh. The last thing I needed to do was have to make an additional dough.

So although I initially had that card on the brain, the recipe I used was from the Better Homes & Gardens Bread Cook Book (1968 edition). I already had everything on hand with the exception of milk and eggs. I had yeast (although the packets were from last year) and I had golden raisins. Like the Safeway would carry currants. HA!

So let’s get baking!

Anyway, I followed the recipe and then got to the point where the dough sat for an hour and a half and rose. So, while it was rising I was listening to Spotify and one of my most favorite songs came on and I sang to it like crazy. It upsets me that there wasn’t an official video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUtoJ9QNs14

Do you know that song? It was the theme song to one of my all time favorite movies Chances Are. I watch it any and every time it’s on TV. Not familiar with it? Did you like Peggy Sue Got Married? This right up your alley. Both star beautiful blonde women, over thirty, in weird time travel/reincarnation love stories. Except in Chances Are substitute Cybill Shepherd for Kathleen Turner and Robert Downey Jr. for Nicolas Cage.

I think you all know how I feel about both RDJ and Mr. Cage.

How can I not love this movie? It combined Cher and RDJ–two of my favorite things!

OK, so after rising here is the dough:

And then I rolled it out and made the little buns. I rolled out just half the dough because I only had 1 cookie sheet (I should remedy that) and–what the hell would I do with that many hot cross buns? I rolled the remaining dough into a ball and I put it in the freezer. If that works for Teresa Guidice’s pizza dough, it should work for this dough, no?

Per the directions, after I cut the little circles, I squished them in a bit to make them more bun-like. Here they are before they went into the oven:

And here they are after!

The icing didn’t work out like I wanted to. It was a bit runny, but if I had gotten it thicker, I didn’t have the equipment to pipe it, so it doesn’t matter much, does it? So there you have it: hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one penny, two penny, hot cross buns:

I am glad that I did something special this year for Easter because I always really liked Easter–the new outfit with the matching hat and gloves, all the tulips–or maybe just because I really, really love lamb with mint jelly and Cadbury eggs–whatever. I will bring some of these to Easter Sunday Funday at Manny’s.

A happy Easter to everyone (and a belated Passover). Or if you don’t celebrate anything, just have a happy SPRING! It finally looks as though winter broke, yinz guys!