HYDERABAD : Hot Cross Buns — who wouldn’t love these doughy, raisin-studded delights that are traditionally eaten during Lent, especially in the week leading up to Easter. Marked with an icing or dough cross on top, they’ve been a holiday staple of some communities for centuries. Risen with yeast, speckled with dried fruit and mixed peel, and heady with spices, these are your Ultimate Easter Bun!
Hot Cross Buns are inextricably linked to Easter and Christianity. One old belief says that if you bake these on Good Friday, they won’t go mouldy the following year. Another tradition states that a Hot Cross Bun was always kept from the batch baked on Good Friday, in case anyone in the family fell ill the next year. A small piece of the bun would be fed the patient. These buns had holy connotations and were believed to be able to cure all illnesses, including the most dreadful ones. Another myth says that Cross Buns may probably have pre-Christian origins — they were baked to celebrate Eostre, the Germanic Goddess of Fertility, after whom the season of Easter is said to be named.
Whichever theory you wish to attach to your Hot Cross Buns, we can all agree these are the seasonal treat of the holidays. They join Simnel Cake, the light fruit cake topped with marzipan and 12 marzipan balls which represent Christ and his disciples (minus Judas), as a traditional baked treat of the Easter season.
In England & Ireland, they were once sold by vendors, who advertised their buns with cries of ‘Hot Cross Buns! Hot Cross Buns!’ These street cries became the famous nursery rhyme — Hot cross buns, Hot cross buns, one ha’ penny, two ha’ penny, hot cross buns. If you have no daughters, give them to your sons, one ha’ penny, two ha’ penny, Hot Cross Buns.
As I went to an Irish School, I remember singing the rhyme. I would not say that the Hot Cross Buns I’ve had in my life were of the gourmet kind, but they were certainly delicious. I loved the smell of the spices and the sweet aroma of the raisins when the buns were cut open and toasted.
Yes, it really does seem that Hot Cross Buns are as filled with memories as they are with sultanas and currants. This is especially poignant this year as I watch my little nephew grow and maybe have his first Hot Cross Bun? What about you? What memories of Hot Cross Buns do you have?
PS: Spero Patisserie in Jubilee Hills, Johns Bakery in Abids and Karachi Bakery are some of the places you’d find Hot Cross Buns in the city.
(Vishal Fernandes is a business traveller and luxury lifestyle blogger)