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The Devil went down to Cherokee

Posted by Chris McLeod almost 8 years ago

Easter is a great time. The daylight hours are long and the weather is cooler because it isn’t quite summer, but it isn’t quite winter either. The weather is just nice. And I did notice that lot of people were also enjoying the long weekend that is Easter and because the local café was far busier than usual. And unfortunately that is when a minor note of unpleasantness creeps into an otherwise pleasant Easter.

Regular readers will recall that I am not a morning person. However, on occasion, exceptions have to be made to this general rule about avoiding early mornings. And so whilst the sun had barely shown its face over the mountain range in this corner of the planet, the editor and I dragged ourselves out of bed and took ourselves down to the local café to enjoy an early morning coffee, toastie and hot cross bun before the Easter crowds took over. At this point in the story it is worth mentioning that hot cross buns are simply a fruit bun traditionally served at around Easter time. The tradition of these fruit buns apparently began with the ancient Greeks and has withstood the test of time. Clearly hot cross buns are very tasty fruit buns, otherwise the tradition would never have lasted as long as it has! (Edit: there is no Easter Brussell Sprout tradition.)

Anyway, disaster struck early on this Easter as the local café had run out of their supply of really excellent hot cross buns. The buns were good too and worth getting out of bed at some ungodly hour of the morning just to pay my culinary respects to. What a total disaster for us as there were no hot cross buns to be had!

It is worth mentioning, that not all hot cross buns are good. In fact, some hot cross buns for sale are pretty ordinary tasting. Over the past decade, I have baked many different breads, cakes and biscuits and so I thought to myself: How hard can a hot cross bun be to make? I also considered the more practical aspects of the hot cross bun situation if I made them myself - in that I don’t have to get out of bed as early and the editor could also enjoy a well-earned coffee and hot cross bun delivered to her in bed in the morning. Everyone wins with that arrangement!

Most people have a secret skill or hobby, and mine is baking. Seriously! I really enjoy baking breads, cakes, and biscuits and I rarely receive complaints from the people consuming the end product and often they will reminisce at a later date about a much earlier bread, cake, or whatever. On the other hand I’m a dilettante because I’ve rarely put much effort into the art of baking. You see, the truth is that the hours that bakers work, really never appealed to me as a possible career option. But there is also a darker side to my baking hobby because when I lived in the inner city of Melbourne I was surrounded by many of the finest boutique bakeries in the entire city, and it was really weird but, many of those same bakeries used to occassionally provide me with additional free quality produce along with my purchases! It was uncanny and I was totally spoilt. Alas such days are in the past now and don’t help me because despite my best wishes, there appear to be no hot cross buns to be enjoyed at the local café!

The author kneading the hot cross bun mix on the kitchen bench. Note more tomatoes are in the background!

I took the recipe for the hot cross bun mix from a very classic cook book: “Cookery the Australian way – Third edition (1980)”. That cook book was obtained during my high school home economics class, which in hindsight I wish now that I’d perhaps paid a little bit more attention to! Still, with a fundamental dish to prepare, it often pays a cook to refer to a fundamental cook book and that book is a classic which was written in 1966 and is still in print today... Mind you, I wasn’t entirely happy with some of the proportions of the ingredients that they specified in the recipe, so I made a few minor alterations. So, without further ado and I sincerely apologise to the Charlie Daniels Band who wrote and performed the most excellent song "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" I now apply a few alterations to their excellent lyrics…

The Devil went down to Cherokee. He was lookin' for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind. He was willing to make a deal

The hot cross bun mix left to rise in a baking dish before being baked in the oven

I’ve never made hot cross buns before and they ended up being very tasty (after a few minor experiments). The six hot cross buns in the photo above were of a perfect size and consistency (for those that are technically inclined I used a kitchen scale to ensure the evenness of the buns), but unfortunately they were all consumed by guests today before I had a chance to even get a photo of the finished result.

When he came across this young man bakin’ buns and playin' it hot.
And the Devil jumped upon a eucalypt stump and said "Boy, let me tell you what."

For the rest of the blog entry click on:http://ferngladefarm.blogspot.com.au/

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