ELK POINT - We are all becoming resigned to the fact that this won’t be the usual Easter, with families gathering en masse to feast and enjoy getting together as winter, hopefully, melts into spring. But it will be Easter, nonetheless, and regardless of the lack of family to share it with, one thing is not going to be missing from my Easter season.
Hot cross buns… they have been part of Easter every year since I was a toddler.
This traditional Easter bread, fragrant with spices and studded with raisins and candied peel, was a spring staple in our house from long before I was born, Every year on what was known as Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, my mother and my big sister filled their biggest blue mixing bowl with such a huge quantity of dough that they would take turns kneading it, before buttering the bowl, tucking the dough under a freshly laundered tea towel and setting the bowl atop the warming oven of the old coal range to rise. Every pan in the house would be brought out and buttered, ready to receive the balls of dough, each marked with a cross, after that first rising was complete, and more coal added to get the oven to just the right temperature by the time the buns lifted the tea towels above the pan rims and were ready for baking.
The fragrance of those seasonal treats set every mouth in the house to watering, but no buns would be eaten that day, Mother having made it clear that they were meant only for Good Friday. Once they were cooled, the cake decorator would be brought out and a sugary cross added in the shallow markings on each bun.
By Friday morning, the counter of the old oak kitchen cupboard would be lined with brown paper packages of buns, ready for delivery to friends in Calgary when Father drove Mother to church for the traditional Anglican three-hour Good Friday service. Only after those packages were made up were we free to enjoy the extras, and to me, they were the best bread all year, even a little bit more special than my usual favourite treat, cinnamon rolls. And enjoy them we did, throughout Easter weekend, until every last one was gone.
When I grew up and left home, it took me a number of years of eating ‘store bought’ hot cross buns before I decided I was proficient enough at yeast dough to make my own, but the marvelous smells that came out of that oven made me wonder why I had waited so long to continue the family tradition. Grocery store buns were fine, but that treat to the senses just wasn’t there… at least not until a few years ago, when I left the office early one spring Thursday to walk down to Elk Point’s bakery. I had no sooner stepped out the door than I caught a whiff of wonderful, a scent that grew stronger all the way down the block. It stayed with me all the way back to my car, where I locked the buns safely inside so I wouldn’t be tempted to open that bag before its time.
This year, I might take that walk again, but since I’m working from home these days, I might just dust off the bread machine on Thursday and fill it with all the ingredients that make hot cross buns so special. Once the machine has done its work and the first rising is complete, I’ll section it up on that old oak countertop and make the markings, just like Mother did years ago, and enjoy the scent that surrounded those just-before-Easter days of my childhood. Would I wait for Friday to sample one? It isn’t likely, but homemade or bakery bought, they will be on my Good Friday breakfast table.
Whether there will be any left by Easter Sunday, I don’t know, but that day has its own special treat, or at least it does most years. That’s the day we eat bunny ears for breakfast. Dark chocolate bunny ears, those we’ve promised ourselves through weeks of cutting back carbs… if I find some by then!
