Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter my little bunny rabbits. Firstly apologies for the paucity for postings this week. I’ve been tied up with a big work project, which then got postponed until July after I had turned down other work in order to do it. Grr. And grr again.

It’s been the most glorious Easter Sunday: crisp and sunny, and warm enough to wear my pretty Cacharel olive cotton, zip front collarless jacket, which is lined in a red floral Liberty print, with wide-legged jeans, a grey cashmere knotted scarf and cream Converse hi-tops.

I’ve been barrelling around town like a maniac on my bicycle in an attempt to burn off the delicious food I ate at the Easter brunch J threw at her gorgeous Soho apartment.

I had promised to bring a contribution, so made chocolate cornflake nests with mini eggs last night, (yes, I really am 10 years old), but ran out of time to make my Hot Cross buns as the dough needs an hour to rise, & I needed to sleep.

Waking at 8 to make the dough, I tried hard not wake my roommate as I crashed about, spraying currants & spices around the kitchen and getting wet dough stuck in my hair, under my fingernails and seemingly permanently glued to the kitchen counter.

I’ve also had some bike problems, so John, the amazing bike man rocked up from Pennsylvania at 9am to sort things out, and then I punched down my dough and made a dozen extremely oddly shaped buns, scoring the tops, brushing them with egg wash and making a simple flour & water dough to roll into strips to press into the scores to make the traditional white crosses.

They only take fifteen minutes to bake, so I made a simple sugar syrup whilst they were baking, which I poured all over the buns when they came out of the oven: Hot Cross buns are traditionally super sticky. I have to say they looked pretty odd, and were pretty heavy. I need to get the balance of yeast sorted out. (God I hate baking using cup measures: so imprecise for what is essentially a scientfic process.)