These gluten free hot cross buns were absolutely the best! Grandma Jackie came up with the recipe and made them with the girls in honor of Good Friday. The hot cross bun origin is quite interesting if you haven’t read up on it before here is some little tid bits of info on the Christian tradition and the Pagan tradition.
The Christian tradition of hot cross buns may go back as far as the 12th century. According to the story, an Anglican monk baked the buns and marked them with a cross in honor of Good Friday. Over time they gained popularity, and eventually became a symbol of Easter weekend.
Towards the end of the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I passed a law limiting the sale of sweet buns to funerals, Christmas, and the Friday before Easter. The English were deeply superstitious, believed the buns carried medicinal or magical properties, and were fearful of those powers being abused. Some even believed that buns baked on Good Friday would never go stale.
The Pagan tradition was that the Saxons worshipped Eostre, from which we get our word “Easter” as the goddess of dawn and spring. At the arrival of spring they celebrated a month-long festival in celebration of the transition from Winter to Spring. During this festival the Saxons made buns to offer the goddess. They marked the buns with a simple cross, to represent the four phases of the moon.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups gluten free *Baking Mix* (I used Arrowhead Mills) NOT GF flour
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp cloves
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 cup cold ghee
- 3/4 cup mix of your favorite dried fruit, raisins, cranberries, currants, apricots or ? (chop up big pieces )
- 1/2 cup almond or coconut milk
- 2 eggs
Directions:
- Mix spices and Baking Mix. Work the cold butter into the baking mix. (I used my pastry cutter and broke it up before adding to the dry mixture.)
- It’s okay to leave some small pieces
- Whisk the eggs and milk together and add to dry mix. Stir in fruit mixture.
- Form into 9 balls…roll in your hands. Use a 8″ x 8″ greased pan, brush tops with a little more melted ghee
- Bake until golden brown, about 18 minutes. Cool completely and frost with a simple powdered sugar, a little ghee, and your milk option, icing.
- Put it in a plastic sandwich bag and cut the corner off, to pipe in a cross (+) design. (icing should be thick)
