Happy Easter

Revisiting Hot Cross Buns (and only two days out of season!).  I used the August* 1857 instructions from Peterson's.

Hot Cross Buns, page 150, August 1857 issue of Peterson's.

For this version, I used about 6 tsp of active dry yeast in warm water, with skim milk for the dairy.  It had a very nice texture--it baked up like a normal bread, much less dense than my last attempt.  The flavor was distinctly less satisfying, however--an aroma of spice rather than a flavor of it.  After applying math to the situation, I determined that I probably used about half as much spice as I should have, and my scale isn't great at such small amounts. I'll use volume measures for the spice next time (7 Tbsp + 1 tsp total spice should be about 1.5 oz; I'll try 4 Tbsp cinammon, 2 1/3 Tbsp allspice, and 1 Tbsp mace).

Hot Cross Buns, take 2.

They were tasty enough, just a bit boring. Fortunately, I some other baked goods on the agenda, and had some playing around with the decorating tips:

An Easter basket. And a cake. It has many talents.

*This publication date is confusing me. Cross buns are a Good Friday tradition everywhere else I've read.