Monday 21 April 2008

Hot Cross Buns


On Good Friday the Social Secretary made hot cross buns.

Please don't get me wrong. The SS is a marvellous cook. Her lemon meringue pudding is mouth-watering, and only last Saturday she produced a memorable curry for eight. Every day the east wing fills with the smell of baking bread, and her round biscuits with bits in them seldom get a chance to cool.

But that day the devil was in the dough. The buns deserved their name only because she got so hot and cross making them. There was the picture on the recipe, a dozen buns, all round and shiny, sugar on the top. And here these guano-flecked moon rocks, hunched malevolently on the rack, muttering protestant imprecations.

The word 'bun' comes from the Old French, buigne, meaning a boil or swelling. Sadly these buigne went in the bin.

15 comments:

  1. ..but did they taste good?..

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  2. And thank you for blog-rolling me (is that the right phrase? It sounds illegal). Have enjoyed your blog for a while, so have reciprocated. BT

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  3. Why thankyou sir :-)

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  4. They are so beautiful!

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  5. Little Faberge buns, aren't they?Raga-muffins.

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  6. Urm, is it bad to say that warmed in the oven with a little butter those babies look like they would have been DEL-IC-IOUS!

    x

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  7. Not bad, GWTM, good. There was a density issue (they seemed to have evolved anaerobically), but the chef ditched them before trials could begin.

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  8. ... You see, it's all in the title - if you'd said "crusty iced rock cakes" I'd have been drooling already.

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  9. PS Thank you for my very first namecheck! Am now feeling validated in a strange interweb way.

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  10. Lucy, what's a namecheck? I'm all for validating you in any way I can, but have I inadvertently done something stalkerish or weird?

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  11. Oh god no sorry. I meant "putting my blog in your sidebar" but as yet haven't acquired the correct vocabulary. Is THAT what "blogrolling" is?
    I have no stalker. I will consider it a mark that I've arrived when i get one..

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  12. This looks like a case of the blind leading the blind! I don't know the vocab either and nobody had listed me except my nice niece Meg from 'Thirteen Steps to Nowhere' until a few days ago. Now she is an overnight superstar in the interweb dental world...but you'll have to ask her about that...

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  13. Um, hello? I've listed you... haven't I? I hope dyspraxia hasn't let me down again... M

    ps the moon cakes look awesome!

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  14. Marianne you have, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. What I meant was that any listings have been very recent.
    Don't forget to leave room in your case for some of that wonderfully baroque venetian glass.

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