Hot Cross Buns

Do you have a tradition of eating hot cross buns on Good Friday like we do in our family? Every Good Friday I can remember as a child included eating delicious hot cross buns my mother had made that day.

Smooth, round rolls of sweet bread dotted with raisins and crossed with a delicious glaze on top. They made the house smell good and I couldn't wait to eat them. We'd sing the "Hot Cross Buns" song and talk about what the cross represented on the buns that special day.

My mom is currently living in England, so she's getting the authentic treat right now and says the bakery windows are filled with these yummies.

I've made different recipes of gluten-free hot cross buns over the last couple of years and I think this year I finally came as close to recreating Mom's originals from the Joy of Cooking recipe as I will probably get. Last year I played around with different flours but didn't get anything with a decent texture. They were more like bread-type cookies.

This year I used the some of the same flours I use in my yeast bread recipe and had success. For these photos, I placed the dough in muffin tins to be sure they came out round. When I make these again on Friday, I'll attempt them on baking sheets in what will hopefully bake into nice round rolls (I'll try a tester first and use muffin tins again if they don't turn out). They don't look quite the same as my mom's, but the taste is definitely there. And it's definitely good!

Another thing I like about this recipe is I used just a saucepan and wooden spoon. No mixer required!

Projected time, start to finish including rise: About 2 1/2 hours
(Printable Recipe)

1 cup milk
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/4 cup organic pure cane sugar
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1/4 cup raisins
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon zest or 1/2 tsp. dried lemon zest
2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
2 Tbsp. very warm water
1 large egg
2 cups Pamela's bread mix and flour blend (not the baking mix)
2/3 cup millet flour

Icing for cross:
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/8 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. milk

In a large saucepan, heat milk until hot but not boiling.

Add butter, sugar and salt, stirring until dissolved. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins and lemon zest. Let cool to warm. (You want it just warm enough to not cook the egg.)

In a small bowl combine warm water and yeast, let sit for a few minutes. Stir into milk mixture.

Beat egg into milk mixture.

Sift flours together and pour a small amount into the milk mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon. Continue adding a little at a time, beating with the wooden spoon, until it's all mixed. Continue to beat with wooden spoon for about a minute or so, until everything is combined well and a nice dough has formed.

Place in a large greased bowl and cover with a damp towel. Set in a warm place to rise, about an hour, until doubled.

Doubled ...

If using muffin tins, grease them first and then place 18 equal portions into the tins. If you want to try shaping the buns yourself, grease baking sheets and round 18 balls to place on the sheets.

Cover again and let rise in warm place until nearly doubled again, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375. You'll want to use the top rack if you are using a gas oven. (I'm playing with it here. The original recipe called for 425 degrees and I started with 400. They were baking too fast so I lowered it to 375 and baked for less time. I'm giving you an estimate on the full time at 375 until I make them again.)

Bake approximately 15-20 minutes or until done.

Let cool completely and then make crosses on top with the icing.

To make the icing, in a small bowl combine the powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Stir well to combine. If it's not thick enough to hold a line to form the cross, add a little more sugar at a time until it is.

Enjoy!

For my photo of beauty, I'm sharing another flower photo. We have wildflowers blooming for spring - not as many as I'd like with the drought going on but enough to enjoy their beauty. I love the vibrant red and orange in the Indian paintbrushes. I hope you have a beautiful weekend, and Happy Easter!

Why I'm sharing this: http://mamameglutenfree.blogspot.com/2012/02/beauty-in-eye-of-beholder.html

Meringue Easter Eggs

I'll start out by saying that I'm a sucker for meringues. I love them. There's something almost heavenly about them - they hardly weigh anything and have the most unexpected texture for something so hard. Yum.

These delightful beauties came as a complete accident the other night. I was attempting to make a totally different meringue shape - frogs to be exact - and they ended up looking like aliens. I'm not kidding. So, I had some meringue left over and a little extra oven room and decided that I'd make Easter eggs. I'm glad I did.

Because it was a rush job, I wasn't taking a lot of photos along the way as I usually do. I also didn't have much time to take photos to do the finished product justice (hence the much-doctored above photo - I thought it was festive, anyway).

I adapted this recipe from the "Froggy meringue cookies" recipe out of Jewish Holidays Cookbook a friend recently gave me. Yes, I was trying to make the frogs. It was for Passover (frogs were one of the plagues), which, as I mention in a previous post, I feel is important for us to celebrate along with Easter. The recipe, in the book, however, isn't complete. It leaves out the essential baking time and any instructions after that. Thankfully I knew how much time was needed because, after all, did I mention I love meringues?

Projected prep time: 20-25 minutes; Projected bake time: 2 hours
4 egg whites
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. pure almond extract
Food coloring as desired

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. If you have a gas oven, move your racks to the very top.

Have your egg whites at room temperature and beat them in a large bowl until they are foamy and light.

Add the sugar a little bit at a time, about a tablespoon, while continuing to beat the eggs at a medium-high speed. You may need to stop the mixer a couple of times and scrape some sugar down. When all of the sugar has been mixed in, turn the mixer to high and continue to beat until the meringue mixture is shiny and very stiff. Thick peaks will stand stiff when the meringue is ready. You may have to beat for a while to achieve this.

Remove some of the white meringue at this point if you want white piping. Also, you can remove extra to color different colors.

Add flavorings and food coloring to remaining meringue while mixing on low speed, then return to high to incorporate all of it. You may need to scrape some down.

Place meringue in pastry/icing bags or ziplocs with the tip of a corner cut off and with your main color(s), squirt egg-shaped dollops onto the parchment paper about an inch apart. You'll notice in my photos that I didn't give an inch for all of them. It was an accident and yes, they did puff into each other just a little and easily broke off. If you don't want that, put sufficient space between them.

Take your white color or any other color you have for piping and squirt meringue around the edges of each egg and decorate the tops.

Bake (top rack if gas oven) at 200 degrees for about 2 hours, possibly longer depending on the thickness of your cookies. The meringues should be hard all the way through and come right off the parchment paper. If you prefer to have a softer center, bake them for around an hour. The outside will be hard and have a great crunch, but the center will have a fantastic softer and chewy texture.

Cool pans on wire racks and then transfer meringues to an airtight container lined with wax paper. Store at room temperature. You don't want any humidity to be in that container, so make sure they are completely cooled.

Have fun with them! I do plan on making some of these at some point again - maybe not until next Easter, but when I do have new meringue eggs, I will also hopefully have better photos. I'll share them then.

And enjoy eating them! If I don't get another post in before Easter, have a blessed and very happy Easter!

I will be making hot cross buns with my family tomorrow. The last couple of years, I've used Living Without's hot cross buns recipe found here. They are good. However, I've missed the taste and texture of the hot cross buns my mom made for us every Good Friday while I was growing up. Tomorrow I'm attempting my own recipe/adaptation of the one she used. I'm hoping it works out! If it does, I'll share it with you soon. Again, have a happy and blessed Easter!