Hot Cross Buns
Taken with some minor adjustments from Cooking with Creda (1950)
Buns:
1 packet of yeast
2 oz sugar
7 ½ fl. oz of lukewarm milk
14 oz strong white bread flour, sifted
2 oz margarine
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
3 oz sultanas
2 oz mixed peel
1 large egg
Plain flour and water to make a cross
Glaze:
1 flat dessertspoon icing sugar
1 dessertspoon milk
Cream the yeast with a teaspoon of the sugar and add the milk. Stir in 4 oz of the flour and leave the batter to rise in a warm place, covered in a damp cloth, for not quite an hour.
Rub the margarine into the rest of the flour, then mix in the dry ingredients and fruit. Add this to the spongy batter and beat in the egg. Stir and then knead for a good five minutes, then cover and leave for almost an hour.
Make the mixture into small round buns, place on a greased baking tray and leave for fifteen minutes to prove.
Turn on the oven at 475F (245C) then turn down to 425F (220C) when you put the buns in. Before putting them in, mix plain flour and water together to make a very boring dough, roll into strips (I used my hands with mixed results) and use the resulting lines of flour mixture to make crosses on the buns. Then bake for probably 15 minutes, though check after 10.
When cooked, make up the glaze, brush it onto the buns, then return them to the switched off oven for a minute or so to dry.
Makes 12 buns.
This is both old-fashioned and half the original amount (which had the milk in gills) so apologies for the units. Though the recipe claims that double what I had here would make 36 buns, which is pretty small bunning I think. Also modern packet yeast works a little quicker than what they had back then, hence the just less than an hour bits on rising times. I put more mixed spice in (because a heavy hand with the mixed spice has never harmed a 1950s baking recipe with mixed spice) and more fruit, because I got distracted while making these.
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