Bishop Mike, the Bishop of Exeter, bakes hot cross buns, video Exeter Diocese, Alan Quick

Tindle News

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00:00Well hello, here we are in the kitchen and we're looking today with Good Friday and Easter in view

00:11to bake some hot cross buns which are so associated with the Easter story. I have to

00:18confess this is my first time making these so we're just going to see how it goes. Apparently

00:24the tradition goes back to a 14th century monk from St Albans who baked some buns and gave them

00:33away to the poor outside the monastery walls. Obviously they must have become associated with

00:39being a penny or so because you may remember the rhyme hot cross buns hot cross buns one a penny

00:46two a penny hot cross buns. If you don't have daughters give them to your sons one a penny two

00:53a penny hot cross buns. You can see the association with Good Friday in particular when Christians

01:00have eaten hot cross buns because of course you've got this cross on the front of the hot cross

01:06buns. So let's get started. And here's some dough that was prepared earlier on. What has gone

01:16into the dough that's already prepared there are a number of different items. We have sugar

01:23and butter, strong flour, milk and importantly yeast which enables the bun to rise and of course

01:32a particular allusion to the Easter story because of course what happens is Jesus dies on Good Friday

01:40but rises again on Easter day. Also in the dough you'll find these spices cinnamon mixed spice nutmeg and

01:51they could be associated in the Christian story with Jesus body being embalmed according to the Jewish

01:58tradition and how it was that the women went to the tomb to embalm his body only to find on Easter day

02:05that he had risen again. And you've also got this dried fruit in the hot cross buns as well and the

02:13dried fruit reminds us of the fruit of Jesus passion and death and resurrection which is new life a new

02:21life that he offers us sharing with him and the fruit of that life in love joy and peace. So you can begin

02:29to see just how a story is unfolding in a hot cross bun. So now we come to actually getting the dough out

02:38that we've already put together. So we put some flour down on the surface here and we get the dough out

02:47and we'll just knead this for a couple of minutes what they call knocking it down which means effectively

02:55knocking out the air from the dough. So what we have to do now is put this into small balls of dough

03:06and put on the baking tray so just leave that over there bring the trays over here and make sure that

03:14we've got about I don't know how many we'll get out of this maybe maybe 12 maybe more depends how generous

03:24I want to be with my my buns. And once you've put it on there you just press it down and flatten it so

03:30that when you come to put the the cross on the top there's room to do so. So there we are now about

03:39evenly distributed and we'll just leave those to settle for 20 to 30 minutes for the yeast to take its

03:47effect. Now just a simple glaze of sugar and water which we mix together put into a small pan

03:58and then we're going to boil that for five minutes so that it's ready to glaze the buns.

04:06So you'll notice what I've put on these buns now that have yet to be baked some crosses and I'm about to

04:13put some flour paste on the top to make the cross. So here we go. I hope this works. I haven't done this

04:22before but I'm going to squeeze some of the flour paste on the indentation that's just been made

04:31and there we go. It looks like it may even work. And of course one of the good things to remember

04:40about Good Friday is that despite our catastrophes and the calamities of our lives which we see writ large

04:52in the way that Jesus' friends and those around him treated him, he comes back not to give us hell

05:03but to love the hell but to love the hell out of us. So I'm comforted in the knowledge of that

05:10even as I draw the sign of the cross on each of these buns here as a sign of the good news of God's

05:22enduring commitment to us. And there is something important I think about food on Good Friday.

05:32In many Christian traditions around the world people have food after a funeral, after a death

05:42and there's something about the comfort of food which is an echo I think of the Christian story of

05:50the death of Jesus that is not the end but that actually what we have in East today is the wonderful

05:57comfort of a God who comes back to us and promises us that it's not just him that's raised from the dead

06:05but he is as Saint Paul puts it the first fruits and that in and with him we are promised that we can

06:14share in a hope beyond despair and a life beyond death. So now what we need to do is put them in the oven

06:23The time has come to have a look and see what we've got

06:41So now here we are. Well I have to say I'm not entirely convinced that these look like

06:51shop-bought hot cross buns. They are however homemade hot cross buns and I'm sure that they

07:00taste as good as they smell and of course what you can't get from viewing this is the smell which is lovely

07:10And finally

07:16The last lot of them. So here we are and I'm sure that they will taste absolutely fine

07:23But what we need is a cup of tea and before we finish we also just need to add a little bit of glaze

07:34This is not easy actually

07:40This is not a shop-bought hot cross bun I'm sure you'll agree

07:45In my defense it is the first time I've made hot cross buns

07:50So let's just cut it open like so it's cooked that's the first test a little bit of butter always helps

08:02a little bit of butter on your hot cross bun and a nice cup of tea and let's see how that tastes

08:10Mmm not bad at all not bad at all a very happy easter too

08:25You

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