Olive And Pru: Easter

Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts

20 April 2025

Hot Cross Buns

🐤 Happy Easter 🐤

daffodils + sunshine = happiness

"Hot cross buns, hot cross buns

one a penny two a penny hot cross buns.

If you have no daughters give them to your sons

one a penny two a penny hot cross buns".

The nursery rhyme "One a penny, two a penny, Hot Cross Buns" emerged from the tradition of street sellers hawking Hot Cross Buns. It was first published in "The Christmas Box" in London in 1798.

The St Alban Bun is thought to be the original Hot Cross Bun which was first produced on the site of St Albans Cathedral by a medieval monk, Brother Thomas Rocliffe. According to "Ye Book of St Albans", in 1361 Thomas “caused a quantity of small sweet spiced cakes, marked with a cross, to be made”.
The cakes, which were given away on Good Friday, “so pleased the palates of the people who were the recipients that they became talked about, and various were the attempts to imitate the cakes of Brother Rocliffe all over the country, but the recipe of which was kept within the walls of the Abbey”.

In 1592 hot cross buns were briefly banned in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The ban was not intended to be a permanent restriction, but rather a measure to ensure the buns were not seen as a replacement for the traditional Easter bread. The queen and her court considered them "too special to be eaten any other day" and issued a decree prohibiting their sale except on specific holidays, such as Good Friday and Christmas.

I wonder what Brother Thomas would make of the array of hot cross buns produced today.

Apple and cinnamon, triple chocolate

salted caramel, rhubarb and custard

M&S has a bun for everone!

There are ‘luxury’, ‘very berry’ and ‘extra fruity’ versions. There are buns filled with fudge, and I saw some Kit Kat ones in Australia.

It's enough to send Brother Rocliffe fleeing back to the safety of St Albans Abbey!

Just give me a nice traditional sticky fruit bun 😋

∼ Be safe and well∼

Polly x

1 April 2024

Spring

I forgot to do an Easter post!

The lovely lady at the hospital did a beautiful display.

It's her way of helping to cheer people up. She told me that a few members of staff sit with her for a while and talk about their problems with the NHS.

oOo

Spring is springing and the weather is improving.

Our walk this morning was delightful, bright blue sky, warm sunshine and darling birds singing.

It's the time of cherry blossom and magnolia, such beauty.

The arrival of spring, more daylight hours, slightly warmer weather, birdsong, and getting out into the garden. I'm feeling better about being back from holiday.

∼ Be safe and well∼

Polly x

7 April 2023

Easter

I like hot cross buns as much as I like mince pies but I don't eat as many, and I don't usually do comparisons, but Aldi's luxury range are very good, they're not squelchy like some are.

The history of hot cross buns is a bit fuzzy, but they likely date back to the Middle Ages when it was a cultural institution to share sweet sacrifices with the gods. Many believe that monks first developed hot cross buns in the 1300s, then distributed them to feed the poor. In the late 1500s, when many English citizens believed the buns had magical or healing powers, Queen Elizabeth I began restricting their sale to only Good Friday, Christmas, and funerals so the magic wouldn't be abused. That's when many home bakers began whipping up their own hot cross buns.

Easter is synonymous with hot cross buns. Traditionally eaten on Good Friday, they mark the end of the Christian season of Lent, and different parts of the hot cross bun have a certain meaning - the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, the spices signify the spices used to embalm him and the orange peel reflects the bitterness of his time on the Cross.

As well as Christian origins there are links to pagan beliefs as well. The Saxons baked buns marked with a cross at the beginning of spring in honour of the goddess Eostre, which could very likely be the origin of the name Easter. Eostre was a fertility goddess of humans and crops. The traditional colors of the festival are green, yellow and purple. The symbols of rabbits and eggs represent fertility, and the cross represented the rebirth of the world after winter, and the four quarters of the moon.

Some historians believe that the contemporary hot cross bun originates from St Albans in England, where, in 1361 Brother Thomas Rodcliffe, a 14th-century monk at St Albans Abbey, developed a similar recipe called an 'Alban Bun' and distributed the buns to the poor on Good Friday.

The first definite record of hot cross buns comes from a London street cry: "Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs. With one or two a penny hot cross buns", which appeared in Poor Robin's Almanac for 1733. This then became the popular

Hot-cross buns!

One a penny, two a penny,

Hot-cross buns!

If you have no daughters,

Give them to your sons;

One a penny, two a penny,

Hot-cross buns!

∼ Be safe and well ∼
Polly x