Hot Not Crossed Buns

I'm a fraud. I admit it. I'm emphatically not a Christian, I was not even raised as a Christian, but there are still some Christian traditions I enjoy. Easter is a big one.

As a child, Easter was one of those holidays that made your tummy jump just thinking about it. Oh the anticipation! My brothers and I would get up extra early and creep (no wait, we never crept anywhere, we actually ran around like a heard of cows) downstairs to find our baskets.

Our Easter Bunny did not go for those icky store-bought ones either (lots of grass, not many goodies). Instead we got baskets that were made especially for our tastes (low grass, high goody). There was always a toy involved (animals-themed for me, trucks for The Younger, weird science things for The Elder), and then there was the candy. Keep in mind that candy was not normally allowed all that much at our house. There was always chocolate (often in bunny form) and there were always jelly beans, but there were also malted milk balls, robin’s eggs, mallow eggs, gumdrops, and so much more. It was almost as good as Christmas.

For some odd reason, my mom always insisted that we eat actual food as well. This was really not a hard sell because Easter brunch was always a treat in itself. The menu varied, but it was always tasty, and it did prevent us from sobbing on the lawn (you'll have to ask Elder Brother about that one) from all that sugar. Every year my Auntie D would be there to cook part of the Easter brunch, and some lucky years she would make one of my favorites, Hot Crossed Buns.

Pretty much everything I know about cooking I learned from my mom, but Auntie D was the baker. She didn't just make the occasional plate of cookies; she baked all sorts of wonderful things. Her milk dough recipe could be modified to make cinnamon roles (a Christmas favorite) or Hot Crossed Buns. I did my absolute best, the other day, to make my dough just the way she showed me. The buns turned out beautifully (if I do say so myself) fluffy, and spicy, and studded with raisins.

There was, however, one problem with them. The buns could tell that I'm a fraud about Easter. When I went to "cross" them with icing, I COULD NOT do it. The icing literally refused to stay on the bun. No matter how I tried, the cross would just slide off the top. I think this is clear proof of something (my icing isn't thick enough?) but I'm just not sure what.