Eostre

Tomorrow's Good Friday but I don't get the day off! Here in Indiana it's not a public holiday. I was a little surprised to hear that, America being such a religious country and all. I guess I'm just used to living in a country where there's no official separation of church and state but the people just behave secularly, as opposed to an officially secular country where people are extremely religious.

The other surprising thing is that they don't have Hot Cross Buns here. (Well, they're not popular at least. I did see one paltry six pack that had a nasty-looking icing cross.) Now I'm not a big sultana fan but the last couple of year I've really enjoyed the Australian innovation -- Chocolate Hot Cross Buns. So I decided to make a batch. Now, I knew yeast cookery would be tricky but my immodest estimation of my cooking skills always manages to outstrip my actual degree of success. That is to say, they are not as good as Woolie's or Baker's Delight but are edible. Was tossing up whether to put the cross on top but the website I got the recipe from told me that it was originally meant to symoblise the four seasons of the year, back when Easter was the Spring Exquinox festival of Eostre. So I crossed 'em. Besides which, they wouldn't have been Hot Cross Buns otherwise!