I'm sure this post title may confuse Americans, but we Brits are coming into the period where we eat Hot Cross Buns before Easter Weekend. I have seen the American varieties of these with icing/frosting/chocolate for crosses and various additional surfaces, but only a proper candied peel version which has been toasted and then drenched in butter will do!
The origins of hot cross buns are mixed with pagan traditions with Saxons offering them as sacrifices to their goddesses.
The cross represented the four quarters of the moon to certain ancient cultures, while others believed it was a sign that held supernatural power to prevent sickness.
To the Romans, the cross represented the horns of a sacred ox (bun/boun means 'ox' in ancient English). The Christian church adopted Hot Cross Buns as part of their missionary conversion of pagans.
It is popularly dated back to the 12th Century that HXBs were first linked with Christianity, using small spicy cakes stamped with a cross. It is said that families hung the buns from their kitchen ceilings to protect their households from evil for the year to come. Then during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign in the 16th Century, ‘backward - lookers’ were reportedly tried for Popery for signing the cross on their Good Friday buns. The accused often claimed that it was necessary to mark a cross on the dough, to ensure that the buns would rise.
Me, I'm just about to pop one in the toaster!
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