Hot Cross Buns

Good Friday morning. The kitchen smells of warm milk and cinnamon, of orange zest meeting butter, of something slow and yeasty rising under a tea towel by the radiator. This, more than chocolate eggs or roast lamb, is the smell of Easter for me. It always has been.

Hot cross buns are not difficult. They ask for time more than skill, the patience to let dough do what dough does. You mix, you knead, you wait. You shape, you wait again. You pipe a cross, you bake, you brush them with warm glaze the moment they come out of the oven so they go shiny and sticky as they cool. The whole thing takes the best part of a morning, but most of it is the dough working without you, which means you can put the kettle on and read the paper while the kitchen does the heavy lifting.

I write the date in the notebook every year. Same recipe, same method, same scribbled note in the margin: 'too few currants again, more next time.' I never learn. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract.

Eat them warm, split with a knife rather than torn, smeared with cold butter that softens into the spiced crumb. Strong tea alongside. Good Friday, accounted for.