Hot cross buns are an Easter tradition with a fun history.
According to legend, a 12th-century British monk started making buns topped with pastry crosses on Good Friday, then giving them to the poor to honor Christ’s crucifixion. The buns quickly grew in popularity, and as the years went by, they gave rise to some peculiar superstitions.
Supposedly, a hot cross bun baked on Good Friday would last a year without going stale. If you hung if from your kitchen rafters, it would keep evil spirits away, and ensure that all the bread you baked turned out perfectly. What’s more, if you shared the buns with friends on Good Friday, your friendship would stay strong through the coming year.
In 1592, Queen Elizabeth made a law that hot cross buns could only be baked for Easter, Christmas, and funerals. She felt they were too holy to be sold as an everyday treat. Anyone caught baking them at other times had to give all the illegal buns to the poor.
I’ve been making a version of this hot cross bun recipe every Good Friday for a few years now. My family enjoys them, but the buns sure take a long time to prepare. Fortunately, I recently discovered a way to enjoy this tradition without spending three hours waiting for the dough to rise.
Tradition, Schmadition
As I was browsing through Pinterest last week, I noticed a pin for hot cross muffins. My muffin-loving heart skipped a beat. A cross-bearing baked good that I could mix and bake in just half an hour? Brilliant!
I immediately went in search of hot cross muffin recipes to try. This one was very healthy, made with Greek yogurt, applesauce, and minimal sugar or fat. It was good, but it tasted like spiced applesauce—not quite the flavor I was going for.
I also tried this recipe from a New Zealand blogger. Hot cross buns are very popular down under, and this blogger obviously had a lot of experience with them, because her muffin recipe nailed their flavor and texture. That turned out to be a mixed blessing.
To be honest, I find traditional hot cross buns a teeny bit dry and bland. After all, they hail from England, which isn’t exactly the world capitol of bold-flavored food. For better or worse, we Americans like to bump things up a notch or two.
I started out by adding a little more salt and brown sugar to the New Zealander’s recipe. I also cut out some of the white flour, so the muffins wouldn’t be so dry. That helped a bit, but the result still didn’t wow me, or my kids. As my son put it, “Meh—it’s just another muffin.”
A Clue from Australia
As I considered what might still be missing, I happened upon an Australian newspaper article entitled, “Are Hot Cross Buns Actually Good?” The author asked his countrymen (who consume millions of hot cross buns every spring) what they like best about the festive bun. Most replied that they like smearing butter on it. The author concluded that the majority of Australians aren’t really hot cross bun fans. They’re butter fans.
Chuckle if you will, but that article sparked an epiphany for me. For my next batch of muffins, I replaced the canola oil with melted butter. The results were so good that my kids asked for seconds. At last, I had created a hot cross muffin recipe that appealed to everyone!
Well, almost everyone.
About Those Raisins . . .
My girls have never been fans of dried fruit in baked goods. Throughout this whole hot cross muffin experiment, they kept saying the muffins would be much better if I’d just leave the raisins out.
Me: They’re traditional.
Sulky daughters: We still don’t like them.
You’d think after I’d thrown nearly every other hot cross bun convention out the window, I’d have no trouble ditching this one too. Yet, for some reason, I just couldn’t let the dried fruit go. It felt like part of the essence of hot cross buns—a crucial feature that made this recipe a festive tradition instead of just a muffin with icing on it. I had to find some compromise.
For my last experimental batch, I cut the dried fruit to a mere quarter cup, and I replaced the big raisins with itty-bitty currants. They check the dried fruit box, but their flavor and texture are far less noticeable. My girls still picked a few currants out of their muffins, but they didn’t complain nearly as much. And they asked for seconds. In the world of motherly cooking, that’s considered a win. 🙂
Other Muffin Recipes You Might Enjoy:
Healthy Oatmeal Applesauce Muffins (with 6 Variations!)
Decadent Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup white whole wheat flour (or more all-purpose flour)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup currants (see note)
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk
- Grease 12 cups of a muffin pan, or line the cups with paper liners. Preheat oven to 400 F.
- In a small pot, melt the butter over medium heat. When it starts to bubble slightly, add the cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Cook the spices for 30 seconds, then remove from heat.
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk the milk, egg, and brown sugar, then stir in the currants.
- Pour the milk mixture and the butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix gently, just until all the flour is moistened. Don’t over mix, or you’ll get tough muffins, and that would be sad.
- Spoon dough into prepared muffin tins, filling them three quarters of the way full. Bake at 400 F for 13-15 minutes, or until top feels firm when lightly touched. Allow to cool completely before icing.
- To make the icing, stir powdered sugar and milk together in a small bowl. Add more milk or powdered sugar if required to achieve the right consistency. I like my icing so thick that it’s a little hard to stir. If it’s too thin, it will dribble off the muffins.
- Spoon icing into a Ziploc bag and cut a bit of the corner off the bag. Pipe crosses onto the cooled muffins.
Go easy with the milk when making your icing—a little bit can make a big difference in the icing’s consistency.
