One a penny, two a penny

Hot cross buns are one of my favourite seasonal products. Before we made them in our bakery at Honesty I would make them for my children. They produce a very special baking smell that makes everyone feel happy and comforted. Sugar and spice and all things nice.

At Honesty we have been following the same recipe for years, the basis of which is a list of simple ingredients; flour, milk, Beechwood eggs, sugar, mixed peel, butter, currants, raisins, salt, and mixed spice. Ten ingredients you would find in most kitchens. 

A packet of hot cross buns from one of the major supermarkets contains the following ingredients: flour, dried fruits, mixed peel, and yeast. There is a performative amount of butter. I imagine there so that the supermarket can say they are made with butter. It is some way through the list of 20 that the not so nice ingredients appear, added gluten, invert sugar syrup and emulsifiers such as mono and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids. This emulsifier is used to create the perception of freshness in a product that is no longer fresh from the oven. Then there is the salt, potato dextrin, spices and added flavouring. There is coconut oil, which is why I feel the butter is performative, glucose syrup, for extra sweetness, a flour treatment agent and some modified maize starch, added to improve shelf life and make the bun feel softer for longer. These bad boys will last in your cupboard for a few weeks, maybe months.

You could argue that this is what transparency looks like. The list of 20 ingredients there for you to read but the list does not include the processing aids also used in the manufacture of these buns that the law does not require transparency on. Your supermarket buns probably contain another 3 - 5 ingredients that do not by law need to be listed on the ingredients label.

At Honesty we are proud of the fact that our hot cross buns only stay fresh for a couple of days and that we can tell you exactly what is in the buns.

They are more expensive than the ones in the supermarket but there is no such thing as cheap food because something or someone pays the hidden price somewhere down the line, the environment, the farmers, workers and/or you the tax payer.

Enjoy real hot cross buns this Easter made from real ingredients, by people who care about what they are making. 

Happy Easter. We hope to see you soon.