For children, as well as for adults, the reward for sitting through eight sermons over the course of three hours on a Good Friday afternoon is a hot cross bun. While what we get is a sweet bun filled with raisins or tutti frutti, and topped with a cross made of fondant or icing, its origins were very different.
In the third edition of Holiday Symbols and Customs , Sue Ellen Thompson explains, “The pagans worshipped the goddess Eostre (after whom Easter was named) by serving tiny cakes, often decorated with a cross, at their annual spring festival. When archaeologists excavated the ancient city of Herculaneum in south-western Italy, which had been buried under volcanic ash and lava since 79 C.E., they found two small loaves, each with a cross on it, among the ruins.” The English custom, however, was institutionalised during Tudor times, when in 1592, Queen Elizabeth I decreed that the buns should not be sold except on Good Friday, at Christmas, and at burials. Anyone found making them at home illegally would have to turn over all the baked goods to the poor.
Basically made of rich yeast dough, the hot cross bun is traditionally spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and clove. As with any recipe, it has been adapted to suit local tastes and ingredients the world over. Smitha Kuttayya Boppanda of Baked Delightss says, “I use a lot of fruits and nuts when I bake hot cross buns. And for the cross, it is usually piped out or made with a shortcrust pastry.” While it is symbolically eaten on Good Friday, many people now have it for breakfast on Easter morning, she adds.
Sara Koshy, of Sara’s Kitchen and the popular food blog Bake Tales, first baked a hot cross bun 25 years ago. “There was no Internet, and all I had was one recipe and at that point, I did not even know how to make bread dough. Needless to say, it was a disaster,” she laughs. But later, when her family gifted her a breadmaker, she perfected her technique and came up with her own recipe. She uses a lot of dried currants with nutmeg, cinnamon and clove and uses a glaze on top. “I bake it on Good Friday itself, and I don’t use egg in it, not even for brushing on the bun. For the cross, I mark it in the dough with a knife before it bakes, just as it was done when the tradition first began,” she says.
This simple bun also comes with a lot of superstitions attached to it. It is believed that, if the dough is made and baked on Good Friday, it will not spoil or go mouldy. If hardened in the oven and kept all year, it would protect the house from fire, and hanging one up in the house on Good Friday would keep away bad luck. Sailors believed it would protect them from shipwrecks and farmers buried them in corn to protect crops from rats.
While these beliefs are laughable, it does not make the hot cross bun less desirable. City bakeries like Smithfield Bakery in Purasaiwalkam and all French Loaf outlets will stock them from Good Friday. Five Loaves in St. Thomas Mount and Hot Breads outlets will have them on sale from Thursday. For those who can’t wait a day more, it is already available at Prima’s and McRennet.
And if you’re a DIY kind of person, here is a recipe from Bhaskar Adeeb, Executive Pastry Chef – The Leela Palace.
Ingredients
For the buns
500 g strong white bread flour
10 g salt
5 g mixed spice
50 g castor sugar
50 g soft butter
200 g mixed dried fruits
15 g yeast
200 ml milk
2 eggs
For the crosses and glaze
50 g plain flour
35 ml water
Apricot jam
Method
Place all the ingredients for the buns in a mixer and mix with a slow speed for eight minutes and on high speed for five minutes.
When the dough is fully developed, place in a lightly oiled container. Cover with plastic and rest it for 20 minutes.
Divide the dough into portions and rest it covered for 10 minutes.
Once done, take each portion and shape it round and allow it to proof.
When the dough has risen, heat oven to 200 C.
To make the cross, mix the flour with water to make a paste. Pour into a plastic food bag and pipe crosses on top of each bun.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until risen and golden. Trim the excess cross mixture from the buns, then brush all over with apricot jam for glaze.
