I
have to confess: I love hot cross buns! The soft slightly sweet dough dotted with small currants or raisins with just a wiff of spices all topped with a white icing cross evokes a response in me. They remind me the joy of entering the neighborhood bakery with my mother, smelling the familiar aromas and seeing the beautiful buns with their pristine white crosses just waiting for me!
nion wafer. Protestant England attempted to ban the sale of the buns by bakers but they were too popular, and instead Elizabeth I passed a law permitting bakeries to sell them, but only at Easter and Christmas. English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David [Penguin Books:Middlesex UK] 1979 (p. 473-5)
The actual name ‘hot cross bun’ did not emerge until the I also recall sitting quietly at my grandmother’s kitchen table 1700s in England and has been immortalized a nursery licking the icing from a hot cross bun while she served af- rhyme which you may recall (see center). ternoon tea to her friends and neighbors in the living room. The fact that these wonderful treats were only available dur- So our much beloved hot cross buns have been a custom ing the week preceding Easter made them all the more de- kept for centuries as part of our preparation for Easter. lightful. I don’t remember a time when hot cross buns were Now, here is a modern day twist: not part of my Lenten experience; perhaps it is the same In Manchester, England, a few years back, the hot cross for you. Just seeing them recalls bun emerged as a way in which church the comfort of sharing time with members could get out of the church friends and neighbors as we preHot cross buns! and serve their neighbors – known and pared for Easter. Hot cross buns! unknown. Each day in Holy Week,
As you can see, I am hooked on One ha' penny, two ha' penny, members of the church stood on a busy sidewalk and gave coffee and hot cross Hot cross buns! hot cross buns, enough so that buns to those who passed by on their If you have no daughters, I did a little research to discover way to the train station. They also inGive them to your sons how and why these delightful cluded a short leaflet on Easter and one One ha' penny, treats became a custom passed that explained why they were doing down generation to generation. Two ha' penny, this. Their encounters enabled them Historians tell us that the pagans Hot cross buns. to talk briefly to those who received ate small loaves with crosses at the their gifts of coffee and buns but the time of the Spring festival which impact did not end with those conversations. The members was adopted by Christians in several cultures for consumpthemselves learned that they could start to do evangelism by tion on Good Friday with the cross depicting Christ’s crusimply saying, ‘would you like some coffee and a hot cross cifixion. bun?’ From Father Francis Weiser in Handbook of Christian As we enter Lent this year, perhaps there are some at your Feasts and Customs pg. 208 church who might want to try to connect with neighbors "It was a universal custom (and still is in Catholic using hot cross buns! Imagine if a small group were to comcountries) to mark a new loaf of bread with the sign mit to hit the sidewalks of your community even for an of the cross before cutting it, in order to bless it and hour or two in Holy Week, to share the warmth of coffee thank God for it. On special occasions the cross and hot cross buns and the warmth of friendship with your was imprinted on the loaf before baking, as on the neighbors. If you’re very ambitious, you might even invite Christmas loaves in southern France and in Greece, a few of your fine bakers – and every church has those – to the Kreuzstollen (cross loaf ) in Germany, the cross make the hot cross buns or better yet, to teach others in bread of Mid-Lent among the Slavs. On Good Frithe church to do so. This has all the makings of a fun inday, loaves bearing an imprinted cross (Karfreitatergenerational project, sharing the gift of baking with our glaib) are eaten in Austria. In England, from the end younger members who then can take to the streets with the of the fourteenth century, buns were baked with a warm buns and coffee! cross marked on them. They are said to have originatFor those who have never baked hot cross buns (and that ed at Saint Alban's Abbey in 1361, where the monks includes me), I’m including two recipes I have found, one distributed them to the poor. " a more traditional yeast dough and one made more like a However, according to food historian Elizabeth David, the scone. Since yeast and I do not get along, I’ve tried the the buns were seen by Protestant English monarchs as a danger- scone version and it is delicious, especially dunked in coffee! ous hold over of Catholic belief in England, being baked Hot Cross Bun Recipes from the consecrated dough used in making the commu-