Easter Buns (“ Hot Cross. ”) ✠
3 cups sweet milk.
1 cup yeast.
Flour to make thick batter.
Set this as a sponge over night. In the morning add—
1 cup sugar.
½ cup butter, melted.
½ nutmeg.
1 saltspoonful salt.
Flour enough to roll out like biscuit. Knead well, and set to rise for five hours. Roll half an inch thick, cut into round cakes, and lay in rows in a buttered baking-pan. When they have stood half an hour, make a cross upon each with a knife, and put instantly into the oven. Bake to a light brown, and brush over with a feather or soft bit of rag, dipped in the white of an egg beaten up stiff with white sugar.
These are the “hot cross-buns” of the “London cries.”