The joy of sticky toffee hot cross buns

When it comes to cooking, I make no secret of the fact that I’m something of a traditionalist: I like old-fashioned steamed puddings, I like the classic and the heritage. I like blancmange and rice pudding and suet. I am unashamedly unfashionable. I’m not sure whether I chose the Vintage Chef recipe writing life, or whether the Vintage Chef recipe writing life chose me. I just don’t see the point in reinventing the wheel, or injecting unusual flavours and twists just for the sake of it.

But, as I look back through recipes I’ve written, Easter has always been my exception: hot cross bun ice cream sandwiches, hot cross bun bread and butter pudding, cakes topped with mini eggs. I fell head over heels into the hot cross bun as a bacon sandwich bandwagon a few years ago, and never looked back. Clearly, Easter is my silly season.

I’m not alone: the supermarkets lose their collective mind when it comes to Easter and hot cross buns. Everything conceivable has been stuffed into them over the years: strawberries and cream, mocha, marmite and cheese, tomato and red leicester – and that’s just this year’s offerings. Not to mention all the things that have had hot cross bun flavourings injected into them: cheesecakes, cookies, chocolate, marmalade, caramel spread and – of course – scented candles.

Anyway, that’s how these sticky toffee hot cross buns came about. Gearing up for Easter, I started to think about replacing the traditional dried fruit and zest in a hot cross bun with dried dates, swapping out the caster sugar for something darker, with toffee notes, maybe the nubbly nuts that I love in my sticky toffee pudding. All the scents and flavours of one of my favourite puds, translated into one of my favourite bakes. Yeah, for all my justification, it’s still a bit of a silly bake, but good lord, it’s been a long year, hasn’t it? If we can’t be silly now, and have some fun in the confines of our homes, when can we?

And most importantly, these are such lovely buns.