h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've made that recipe a couple of times and it works very well, though I find if you make 6 teacakes as stated they are very big . I suppose I should have said this in the convo for the article itself...

>>dried fruits (sultanas raisens, err and whatever the other ones are called),<< 2legs

Currants, but they tend to be a bit harder than raisins and sultanas so might need soaking (just in warm water) first.

>>I did a little at the advert that shows hot cross buns with chocolate chunks<< Lanza

This month Coop Food Magazine (we always get two because my son likes to try the recipes and we keep the best ones that work in a scrap book) had a recipe for Chocolate Hot Cross Buns...

http://magazine.co-operativefood.co.uk/marapr2013?page=16

Click on the 'make it' and you'll get the recipe.

Not tried it meself so I can't actually recommend it.

Well, you live and learn. I thought the cross was made of pastry.

Mol

Hot X buns *are* just teacakes with a cross on top, aren't they? Asda seems to think so - they don't sell teacakes any more, just hot X buns all year round.

Hotcrossbuns‘s?, in Yorkshire we call ‘s, buns.

I find them too guppy and they stick your mouth together ;( not the‘s, the buns!) and you need an industrial size cup of to eat two.

Maybe the tea making boffs invented them so we would drink more

Hot cross. Buns are fruit buns with a cross on - aren't tea cakes something else flatter?
I noticed that there seem to be more variations this year, chocolate & cranberry. Might try some of those.

I made some hot cross buns yesterday (Good Friday), so according to the stories that should mean they won't go mouldy, and if I get ill later in the year I can eat one and it'll cure me from whatever it is that ails me.

Right.

Any road up, the recipe I used was much the same as a currant bun/Bath bun/teacake recipe - a yeasted rich dough (bread dough plus eggs, milk and sugar) with dried fruit (no candied peel), mixed spice and cinnamon, the paste for the crosses made from water, flour and sugar, and a warm glaze of water, sugar and gelatin.

I'm very pleased with the way they came out, although I'm not wild about sticky glazes.

If I ever get round to making them... it'll probably be Monday now... well there's nothing else to do on a bank Holiday Monday, really so I plan on making bread and the hotcross buns too Will I get all kinds of bad luck making them on the wrong day then?

Oh... that thing about them not going stale, that was on BBC radio four this morning, I recall and preventing hooping cough and people with fifty year old unopened Easter eggs and stuff
So.... when do I have to wait until the Easter eggs get reduced in the shop?

Here's the recipe I used. I didn't have fast action yeast so I used 18g active dry yeast instead, and I thought the fruit content a bit stingy (compared to some other recipes) so I put in 100g sultanas and 50g currants. I didn't use a 9 x 9 pan either - I put them on a half sheet pan which is 18" x 13", with a sheet of baking parchment. Even then they merged into each other so a 9 x 9 pan would be far too small. And since I don't have a piping bag I cut a small corner off a zip top bag and used that. Oh, and I slashed a cross in the top of each one about five minutes before adding the crosses and piped the paste into the grooves. And I made double the amount of glaze because I don't have a saucepan small enough for the quantity in the recipe, which was just as well because I needed it all.

There are lies, damn lies, statistics, and bloody recipes.

Ingredients
2 x 7g sachets fast action yeast
55g caster sugar
375ml warm milk
600g plain flour
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
60g butter
1 egg
120g sultanas

Flour Paste for the Crosses
75g plain flour
2 tsp caster sugar
80ml water, approx

Glaze
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp gelatine
1 tbsp water

Method

Combine the yeast, sugar and milk in a small bowl or jug. Cover and stand in a warm place for about 10 mins or until the mixture is frothy.

Sift the flour and spices into a large bowl. Rub in the butter. Stir in the yeast mixture, egg and sultanas; mix to a soft sticky dough. Cover and stand in a warm place for about 45 mins or until the dough has doubled in size.

Grease a 23cm (9") square cake pan.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 5 mins or until smooth. Divide the dough into 16 pieces and knead into balls. Place the balls into the prepared pan. Cover and stand in a warm place for about 10 mins or until the buns have risen to the top of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 425F/220C/gas 7.

Place the flour paste for crosses into a piping bag fitted with a small plain tube. Pipe crosses onto the buns.

Bake the buns in the oven for about 20 mins or until well browned. Turn onto a wire rack and brush the tops with hot glaze; cool. Serve with butter.

Flour paste for crosses - Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl. Gradually blend in enough of the water to form a smooth paste.

Glaze - Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan and stir over heat, without boiling, until the sugar and gelatine are dissolved.

its nearly time to open the Easter eggs, mines made by a famous Scottish whisky manufacture,as for Hot cross buns, not had one, bought them or likely to make them but if you have, enjoy

I've not been bought any Easter eggs that I knwo of So I'll just have to buy myself a whole bunch, when they're reduced to clear Mind.... I'll probably have eggs for breakfast tomorrow

Don’t leave it too late or they’ll all be gone, remember all your big supermarkets don’t open Easter Sunday so you’ll need to camp outside your local shop tonight to ensure you get a look in tomorrow

Best of luck

If I've got my shoes on, my little local 'corner shop' (though its not atually on the corner, but it sells everything, and then some), is less than a two minute walkfrom the sofa in my front roo... I may have to visit them first thing

Not buns - just doesn't seem right somehow, in autumn.

No, not buns but little foil-wrapped eggs, 'hidden' around the garden for the two small grandsons, on Friday.
Oh merriment.
Oh mirth.
Oh gaiety.
Oh joy.
!

No need for buns

Heh!

I was in Ingelton yesterday, all the kids seemed to be having a wonderful time with their mums and dads doing their Easter egg hunt, me on the other hand, was looking for a pub, thirsty work all this walking around