Easter Buns (“Hot Cross.”) ✠
- 3 cups sweet milk.
- 1 cup yeast.
- Flour to make thick batter.
Set this as a sponge over night. In the morning add—
- 1 cup sugar.
- ½ cup butter, melted.
- ½ nutmeg.
- 1 saltspoonful salt.
Flour enough to roll out like biscuit. Knead well, and set to rise for five hours. Roll half an inch thick, cut into round cakes, and lay in rows in a buttered baking-pan. When they have stood half an hour, make a cross upon each with a knife, and put instantly into the oven. Bake to a light brown, and brush over with a feather or soft bit of rag, dipped in the white of an egg beaten up stiff with white sugar.
These are the “hot cross-buns” of the “London cries.”
Plain Buns
Are made as above, but not rolled into a sheet. Knead them like biscuit-dough, taking care not to get it too stiff, and after the five-hour rising, work in two or three handfuls of currants which have been previously well washed and dredged with flour. Mould with your hands into round balls, set these closely together in a pan, that they may form a loaf—“one, yet many”—when baked. Let them stand nearly an hour, or until very light; then bake from half to three-quarters of an hour until brown. Wash them over while hot with the beaten egg and sugar.
These are generally eaten cold, or barely warm, and are best the day they are baked.