So, I wish all my Christian brethren and brethenesses a blessed Good Friday and Easter, as we reflect on God's many blessings and goodness to us.
Ever since I had Nigel's buns LAST easter, I have had a yearning for Hot Cross Buns, but our busy master baker wasn't doing any this year, so, necessity is the mother of invention, and cravings are the mother of ... do it yourself if you cant buy them. Yes, of course you can buy them, but somehow, commercial ones lack soul, and lurve, and I cannot partake of these buns unless they ARE made with lurve and soul.
The buns themselves have a checkered history.... possibly of pagan origins even....contrary to popular belief (I don't know who's), they do not ward off evil, just because they have a glazed cross on their surface. Protestant England even banned them for awhile, until the Virgin Queen decided to allow it for Easter. After all, they didnt want all the Bakers to meet their Maker from dying of starvation.
Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
As with most nursery rhymes, they make no sense, unless you know its usually dark and sinister meaning. Like Mary Mary quite contrary apparently referred to Mary Tudor or Bloody Mary (she was killing of non Catholics during her reign, so how does your garden grow refers to the growing graveyard of protestants), King Henry VIII's daughter. Jack and Jill refers to Louis the XVI and Marie Antoinette respectively, who's head came tumbling after, in the French revolution. Humpty Dumpty was probably a very fat man with high cholesterol.
I digress. So yeah, in the absence of Nigel's buns, I whipped up a batch of my own, taking many shortcuts. Two types, one with raisins, one with candied ginger. I love the ginger ones, as they give a certain zing. Toasted and slathered with butter, they did taste rather good, though texture wise, cannot compare with the Master's.
Want ah? Call me la.
