Hot Cross Buns

These lightly spiced buns filled with currants and, sometimes, dried fruit are slashed on top in the outline of a cross. The English institutionalized the custom of serving Hot Cross Buns, with their symbolic design, at Easter, specifically on Good Friday, at the beginning of the 1700s. Like Fat Tuesday Buns (also called Lenten Buns), Hot Cross Buns originated as part of the Lenten festivities celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church and some western Christian churches. Shrove Tuesday, or Fa