Hot Cross Buns

I love lazy rainy days.  Even better are lazy rainy holiday days when hubby is home.  Today has been bliss.  Sleeping in, staying in pj's till noon, not bothering with cleaning, art project with my girl, watching movies and doing pretty much nothing but just being with one another.  I was slightly motivated to do some baking, but only slightly as I have cheated and used my bread maker.  But hey, its Good Friday and its rainy and I am loving being lazy.

As it is Good Friday I decided to try my hand at hot cross buns.  These buns are an english tradition and very popular in New Zealand.  You know easter is around the corner as soon as you see these soft sweet buns hit the shops.  I had never seen them until I moved here but I have to say they are a much nicer tradition than the easter bunny and all the chocolate.

The tradition of these buns dates back centuries and have a cross baked on the top of them in pastry that is meant to signify the cross.  They are usually eaten on Good Friday.  I like the idea of something that signifies the true meaning of easter rather than all the commercialized chocolate sold in the shops and I like it even better homemade.

I had never made them before so found a recipe off Allrecipes that looked good and gave it a try: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pull-Apart-Hot-Cross-Buns/Detail.aspx?prop31=1 
I am pretty happy with how they turned out, although I am sure I could have made them smaller and more of them as they did end up a bit big.   I do love my bread though so these will not stick around long.  Instead of the pastry cross on the top I did the cross with an icing sugar and milk paste as suggested by this recipe and I like it much better than the pastry.  It definitely adds to the buns.  I also put raisins and chocolate chips in as this is all we had in the house this morning and my husband and I couldn't agree on which flavour to do so I did both.