A Traditional English Easter

Copyright Garry Knight 2010 Creative Commons

Just ten days until Easter.

I'm looking forward to the break - Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here - and to devouring Simnel Cake and Hot Cross Buns.

I honestly can take or leave all the chocolate but would feel robbed without Hot Cross Buns.

Not the Hot Cross Buns the supermarkets are full of, for so blinking long before Easter, but proper bready ones, home made and hot on Good Friday morning.

I love Simnel Cake as well - all that surprise marzipan in the middle of dense fruit is just the best!  - but I am hoping the weather is fair enough  for a good old appetite rising Easter ramble as the Simnel Cake is certainly not light on the stomach :-)

If you fancy some traditional English food this Easter and you've not made Hot Cross Buns or Simnel Cake before, the recipes below are genuine enough for even the Dowager Duchess herself to approve!


They are both adapted from the The Cookery of England by Elisabeth Ayrton, a fabulous compendium of old English recipes that is sadly out of print but which you can pick up pretty easily second hand.

Hot Cross Buns

Ingredients

• 500g / 2 cups of strong white flour 
• A pinch of salt & a teaspoon each of cinnamon & mixed spice
• 60g / 0.25 cups of butter
• 60g / 0.25 cups of currants
• 60g / 0.25 cups of yeast
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• About 1/2 pint milk
• 1 egg
• 4 tablespoons plain flour

Instructions

1. Sieve the flour, salt and spices
2. Rub the butter into the flour & spices until bread crumb consistency
3. Stir in the currants
4. Warm a little of the milk and mix with the yeast and a snatch of sugar
5. Pour the yeast into the middle of the flour, covering it lightly with more flour
6. Leave for 10 mins
7. Mix the egg in to make a stiff dough, adding a little milk as needed
8. Knead the dough lightly and then leave covered for about an hour until doubled in size
9. Pre-heat oven to 425 f / 220 c
10. Split the dough into small bun size balls (the dough will rise again)
11. Cut a deep cross in each bun and leave to rise by half again (about half an hour)
12. Make a paste of flour and water and pipe into the crosses made earlier
13. Bake at 425 for 5 to 10 mins
14. Melt sugar in 1 tablespoon milk and brush over buns 

Simnel Cake

Ingredients

• 150g / 0.6 cups butter
• 120g / 0.5 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons golden syrup
• 240g / 1 cup flour
• 360g / 1.5 cup dried fruit
• 30g / 0.1 cups candied peel
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• milk
• 500g / 2 cups almond paste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 300f / 150c
2. Grease a 10 inch cake tin
3. Cream butter and sugar together well 
4. Add warmed syrup to beaten eggs and stir in into creamed butter & sugar
5. Mix flour, dried fruit, candied peel and spices together and fold in
6. Mixture should be fairly dense but you might need a little extra milk
7. Put half the mixture in the tin 
8. Roll out half the almond paste into a circle that will fit inside the tin about 1/4 inch thick
9. Put the almond paste on top of the cake mixture in the tin and press down well
10. Add the rest of the cake mixture on top of the almond paste
11. Bake for just over 2 hours - it should be well risen and firm
12. When the cake has completely cooled, roll out the rest of the almond paste into a circle to fit on top of the cake, (not down the sides), and then put the cake under the grill to very slightly brown the almond paste

If you try these, do let me know how you get on.  For more ideas follow me on Pinterest ...

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