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!
Such a cute sing-songy rhyme, this little ditty still entertains youngsters via nursery books (when you can get them off their phones) and videos. But like so many things we overlook these days, it’s really a time machine that reaches back to one version of many that were the traditional call of vendors in 18th-century England, including on the grimy streets of London.
It all started on Good Friday, with the rhyming calls of sellers filling the lanes and alleyways as they lugged baskets of piping “hot” cross buns fresh from the oven to your door—much like DoorDash today. Cross buns were already popular on the continent, including France, and like many traditions they subsequently spread from England to Canada and other Commonwealth countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and—quelle surprise!—India and Pakistan.
Here’s another eyebrow-raiser: The long and winding trail of hot cross buns can be traced back in time and to places most of us would never have guessed, far earlier than the Christian era. But more on that in a bit.
Today, hot cross buns are still a big favourite amongst many favourites in this neck of the woods. Nothing better than an appropriately sweet bread to celebrate the sweet coming of spring and, for many, the end of Lent. (Other than chocolate, of course.)
There’s the superb glossy pane di pasqua from Italy, made with milk and sometimes potatoes. Or specially seasoned kahk from Lebanon. Sweet folar da páscoa, with its braided top, from Portugal. And the delicious paska from Ukraine I often saw while growing up in Edmonton—tall as a funny top hat and crowned with a dollop of icing and colourful sprinkles. (Canada, especially the prairies, has the biggest population of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine.)
Hot cross buns are such perfect comfort food, their popularity has spread in more ways than one. Never mind Good Friday. I’ve seen them tempting us on store shelves as early as February! Rich little buns fragrant with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, if they’re from a good baker. Plump with raisins or currants and, more recently, green or orange bits of candied fruit peel. Ideally, it’s real peel from lemons, limes and oranges simmered in sugar syrup. But in these mass-production times, more often those little bright bits are—surprise, surprise!—industrially sweetened and coloured bits of turnip. Never mind. Just think of it as a source of fibre.
Finally, they’re baked to perfection and, in my books, best topped with a light glaze that makes the whole thing shine—including a cross of light-coloured dough, not one piped in icing.
All of which brings us to another quirk about these hot cross delights. As with too many things lately, you can find any number of contradictory back stories or “histories” online—including totally made-up ones—especially regarding how that distinctive cross arose.
To save you time, and put us all on the right track, here’s a summary from a very reliable source. Alan Davidson’s The Oxford Companion to Food is a fascinating companion to hang out with whenever you want to take a breather from “normal” life—as we’re all meant to do on traditional holidays like Easter.
For me, poking through the pages of a real book anytime, especially when it’s well done, is like giving myself a big hug. And if you or any young ’uns you know are curious about all things “food” you’ll go down more than one rabbit hole (add winking emoji) with this volume that earned Davidson a James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award.
Bonus: you can find it in many libraries or, if you’re lucky, online or at a second-hand outlet, like the Squamish Community Bookstore. Better, order one from your friendly, neighbourhood indie bookstore, like Armchair Books in Whistler (with free home delivery plus a 10-per-cent discount for folks in Pemberton and Squamish), or Book Mountain and Gather Bookshop in Squamish. And read on….
The rise of hot cross buns
So where did the whole hot cross buns thing come from?
First off, according to Davidson, the word “bun” has been used in English since the 15th century. Originally from the French bugne, for swelling, it refers to the bulging shape. As for the “hot” stuff, that part started when the buns were sold hot from the bakery, starting on Good Friday. As for the distinctive cross, which traditionally was cut into the top of the bun or rendered in strips of lighter-coloured dough, it pre-dates Jesus of Nazareth like many symbols in Christianity.
“The mark is of ancient origin,” writes Davidson, “connected with religious offerings of bread, which replaced earlier, less civilized offerings of blood.” Egyptians used crossed marks representing the horns of oxen on small round buns they offered to the goddess of the moon. Ancient Greeks and Romans made similar offerings. And Saxons ate buns marked with a cross in honour of the goddess of light, Ēostre. Rabbits and eggs were connected to same.
With any luck, you’ll soon be connected—to a nice trove of hot cross buns in your world. Many good bakers make them, but if you’re into it, one of the best recipes I’ve found is in The Complete Harrowsmith Cookbook from Harrowsmith, of course—that fine Canadian magazine published since 1976 in beautiful Ancaster, Ontario, and endorsed by David Suzuki for many good green reasons.
Another hard-copy delight worth holding on to. Enjoy.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who’ll always choose paper and ink over eye-boggling screens.
