Mystery Buns - Easter Hot Cross Buns from NOW TV #TotCrossBuns

Yesterday was a very lazy day for me, recovering from an epic, hot marathon, the girls promised me that it would be an honorary Mother's day. The day started well with toast and coffee made by the girls, then they did the washing and sorted out the ironing.  In the afternoon we did some Easter baking together inspired by some of the range of kids TV programmes available on Now TV with a NOW TV Kids Pass.

We discovered NOW TV at Christmas thanks to an offer on a pizza (!) and we've watched a movie or show on it almost every night since! The girls have just started to explore what's available in the kids content too; there are some big names to look out for because you can watch channels which aren't available on Freeview including Cartoonito, Nick Jr. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

NOW TV sent us some Easter recipe cards with instructions on how to get the girls cooking their own Tot Cross Buns, each one inspired by a different NOW TV show. The girls chose to make the Mystery Bun.  A fairly normal looking Hot Cross Bun but with a mystery on the inside, inspired by Be Cool Scooby Doo.

Hot Cross Buns are notoriously hard to bake well but Lara is always up for a challenge. We were following a recipe by Candice of Bake-Off fame so Lara took it very seriously (she is a BIG fan). Our basic dough recipe was supplemented with chocolate chips and fudge chips and then topped off with an almond chocolate biscuit in the shape of a Scooby Snack, all dipped in a butterscotch caramel.

Lara had great fun making the bone biscuits - anything with chocolate in gets her interested. We didn't have a bone-shaped biscuit cutter so she did these ones by hand. I thought the biscuits added an interesting touch to an Easter classic and especially yummy when drizzled in butterscotch sauce.

Also in the range of Tot Cross Buns kids Easter recipes was:

• The Hot X Bun inspired by the Powerpuff Girls
Iced pink cinnamon buns topped with marshmallows, popping candy and strawberry laces for a cross
• Bun-der the Sea inspired by Spongebob Squarepants
Pineapple and blueberry buns topped with starfish
• Ninja Buns inspired by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Savoury, pizza-like buns with pepperoni, cheese and tomato

#TescoEaster - Egg hunts, Easter crafts and a hamper of special Easter treats

This weekend Lara and Holly invited a friend around to take part in an Easter egg hunt to celebrate the start of the Easter holidays. Tesco sent us everything we needed to host our own egg hunt from Easter signs to a bumper pack of chocolate eggs, from fluffy chicks to a set of treasure hunt clue cards - I had everything I needed to create a team-building trek around our house and garden in search of eggs, rabbits and chicks.

Tesco is holding FREE Easter egg hunts on Saturday 8th April and Sunday 9th April in stores up and down the country; there are lots of Easter prizes to be won. To find out which store near you is participating, take a look at their Events Page.

Alongside our Easter hunt we've been preparing lots of half-term activities on an Easter theme so that the girls can get into the mood. Inside our Tesco Easter hamper we had lots of Easter craft activities from their Go Create range including Easter cards, Rabbit masks, stickers, pom poms, pipe cleaners, markers and lots of spring animal characters perfect for creating your own Easter bonnet.

We're preparing for a nice family weekend for Easter with lots of treats but also a traditional lamb roast and, if the weather is kind to us, a barbecue. The girls' favourite treat from the Tesco range was a simple gingerbread decorating kit where you get to decorate your own gingerbread Easter egg cookie with icing and spinkles. Mr. B. and I were more taken with the traditional Italian Easter cake which tested extra special with a bottle of Italian Prosecco - what better way to start the Easter holidays?

If you're looking for Easter inspiration for holiday activities, or Easter food and drink, take a look at the Easter events going on in your local Tesco.

Disclosure: we were sent a hamper of Easter treats to create our Easter egg hunt and help us prepare a big Easter feast.

Make your own personalised chocolate bar!

This weekend Lara made her own chocolate bar with an Easter theme using a fun chocolate picture maker kit from Zimpli Kids.  While Lara's first ever attempt at drawing chocolate art using molten chocolate may not be as precise and well-refined as the examples on the Zimpli Kids website (and the amazing Elsa picture below), I was quite genuinely impressed by Lara's handiwork and we all enjoyed eating it!

The Zimpli Kids chocolate picture maker kit includes a rectangular plastic mould in which to create your chocolate bar, a set of sample templates to trace over and some packs of white, dark and milk chocolate from which to create your masterpiece.  You melt the chocolate in warm tap water and then make a small snip in the sachet from which you squeeze the chocolate.  The chocolate is gluten-free and veggie-friendly.

The chocolate sachets contain real belgian chocolate and the end result is properly yummy (unlike some kids chocolate gifts we've tried before!).  I mean, properly yummy. The small chocolate maker kit comes with a small bag of dark chocolate for drawing outlines, a small bag of white chocolate for filling in your picture and a larger bag of milk chocolate for the background.  We found that there wasn't quite enough milk chocolate to be able to adequately fill in the picture so that it made a nice thick bar - Lara had to be quite sparing with the chocolate and spread it thinly if she were to get the full picture filled in.

The kit is suitable for children from about 4 years upwards.  Really, the only limiting factor is the ability to draw.. with chocolate.  This is easier said than done.  It took Lara quite a while to gain confidence with the chocolate and I think we also cut too big a hole in the sachet for her to draw accurately.  We will learn though!  We also learned to be patient; Lara wanted to eat her creation as soon as possible but it wouldn't come out of the mould.  We had to wait out the full 30 minutes of cooling time and then it easily pushed out of the mould.  Within seconds of taking the photos, the chocolate had been devoured.

Lara chose a simple Easter egg design for her first attempt at chocolate pictures but some of the stencils provided are far more intricate and will take a fair bit of practice.  There is no limit to the creativity you can attempt - all you need is a suitably sized picture that you can trace over.  This gives you the opportunity to make any design you like (remembering that any text you write needs to be created in mirror image as you draw with the chocolate).  I think that a personalised chocolate picture would make a BRILLIANT Easter gift for friends and family and this is a fun activity that everyone can get involved in.

I certainly can't wait to give it a try myself.  It would be nice to know where I could buy replacement sachets of the chocolate that are just as easy to melt and squeeze.

  

Easter Bonnets, Nests, Eggs and More!

Holly has a bit of pressure on her when it comes to this year's Easter Bonnet parade at nursery.  For the last 4 years in a row, either Lara or Holly has won the annual Easter Bonnet competition and Holly would really like to win it again - this weekend she spent nearly a whole day creating things for her masterpiece this year.

I won't share our secret formula for winning the Easter Bonnet competition but I will say this - Holly is incredibly independent when it comes to homemade crafts.  When she sees her older sister cutting, glueing, sewing, shaping, painting and sticking she wants to do all of the things that her older sibling does.  Often I think she'll struggle with the concentration or dexterity required but she always surprises me.  Holly's Easter Bonnet this year is entirely of her own making.  She knew exactly what she wanted to do and told me what she needed.  When she has struggled, she has asked for help but in many cases she has just needed some tips on how to approach a problem - such as how to hold her ha taught while she sticks things on it.  I'm very proud of her, whether or not she is a winner!

Holly's hat has been created using craft kits and Easter themed craft materials from Yellow Moon - our one-stop shop for children's craft activities.  I think this is one of my very favourite times of year for crafting with the girls because there are so many fun ideas of things you can make.

Lara and Holly have decorated our dining room with a string of foam rabbits, each of whom is dressed in a different outfit.  One of these handsome rabbits has made it into Holly's Easter millinery!

My girls love working together in the front room - Lara helps with the more fiddly tasks such as peeling the backing off foam shapes.  Holly barks instructions, for instance to tell Lara what colour paint to use.

Yellow Moon's range of Easter craft activities this year range from spring animals (we loved painting wooden chicks and lambs but it did get VERY messy) to everything you need to lay on your own Easter egg hunt.  Lara and Holly have still got some special colour-your-own Easter egg presentation boxes to create, and some bunny rabbit mosaics.  But the girls most fell in love with these beautiful paper baskets which they very creatively filled with other Easter-themed materials.

These little spring baskets come in a set of 8.  The base folds and slides together (we used tape to make it sturdy enough to hold chocolate eggs!) and the handle is held in place using metal clips.  Lara and Holly chose to fill their baskets with coloured shredded tissue paper (a Yellow Moon staple) and topped with tiny glittery decorative eggs which come in a pack of 100.  The baskets look so cute that we have placed them in the window for everyone to see, alongside our daffodils and spring flowers.

We can't wait until Easter and I'm sure there will be lots more crafting to come!

Don't forget that you can earn between 5% and 20% cashback for your school on most Yellow Moon purchases.

Sweet Easter Vol Au Vents Recipe

I've never made a vol-au-vent before today but I happened to have a packet of puff-pastry that needed using up, and a roll of Bacofoil non-stick foil that had been posted to me to try out so I thought I would give them a try.  The girls asked if they could do some "Easter cooking" so I span an Eastery theme to what is ordinarily a savoury treat - these were so easy to make with the girls.

EASTER VOL AU VENTS (makes approx. 20)

INGREDIENTS

1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry

1 medium egg, beaten

50g butter (at room temperature)

100g icing sugar

15g cocoa powder

approx. 40 mini eggs

METHOD

• Using a crinkly cookie cutter, cut out 40 plain rounds.  Using a small plain round cutter, or a shaped cookie cutter, remove the centre piece from half of them.

• Brush the plain rounds with a little beaten egg and then place the pieces with the holes in on top.  Put each pair onto a baking tray covered with non-stick Bacofoil and brush the tops carefully with egg - if you are too generous with the egg it will stop the pastry from rising.
• Using a cocktail stick, prick holes in the exposed base of the vol-au-vents to try and discourage the middle from rising.

• Place in a pre-heated oven (200 degrees in a fan oven) and cook for 15 minutes until golden brown all over.
• Allow to cool fully on the baking tray.  The vol-au-vents are very delicate so don't try to remove them when hot.  Because the foil is non-stick, you shouldn't have any problems removing them from the foil.

• Once totally cool, make the icing.
• Mix the butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar in a bowl with a wooden spoon (or in an electric mixer), use a splash of milk to soften the icing if needed.
• Pipe or spoon the mixture into each of the vol-au-vents and place one or two mini eggs on the top of each.
• Devour

Mellow Mummy's Chocolate Cadburys Mini Egg Easter Cake

This afternoon I have been baking.  Cadbury's Mini Eggs are about my favourite thing on the entire planet and I was in the mood for cake so I created this Easter chocolate mini egg cake.

It was very simple to make.  I made a large batch of plan sponge mix:-

375g Caster Sugar

375g Soft Butter

375g Self-Raising Flour

3 tsp Vanilla extract

I heated the oven to about 160 degrees (most recipes say a bit higher than this for a large sponge, but I find that this temperature is most predictable for me).  I cooked the cake in two parts, one 20cm diameter and one 10cm diameter, both in spring-form tins.  The smaller cake took about 25 minutes and the larger cake took just over one hour at this low temperature.

After cooling, I sliced the cakes in half and trimmed them neatly.

I made a huuuuge batch of chocolate buttercream.

275g of Butter

600g of Icing Sugar

80g of Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

A Splash of Milk

I sandwiched the sliced cakes together with a layer of the buttercream and then, using a pallette knife, I very carefully coated both cakes with a thick layer of buttercream and placed them offset on top of one another.

I decorated the cake with about 600g of Cadbury Mini eggs in a repeating coloured pattern and then finished the cake off with some Dr. Oetker wafer daisies.

Lara and Holly both enjoyed a piece of cake for pudding but Lara thinks it was too chocolatey!  Is there such a thing?

Spring and Easter Children's Books from Tiger Press

I don't really know how it happened but somehow Easter has become a time for us to share books as a family.  I think it started when Lara was very tiny and we felt it inappropriate to buy her a chocolate egg, so we bought her a book instead.  Now we are on the lookout for this year's Easter books and Tiger Press have come up with some brilliant spring and Easter themed books.

We LOVE these "My First Sticker Activity Book" themed books and I am definitely going to take them with us on our little holiday this Easter.  They are jam-packed full of drawing and colouring pages, easy puzzles and scenes to fill up with stickers.

I loved the fact that there was as much to entertain my nearly 5-year-old in these books as there was to entertain my nearly-2-year-old.  The girls both find it hard to peel of the stickers themselves so they can't really play with the books unaided but there are so many fun activities for them to become absorbed in.

The Baby Animals Sticker Activity book features lots of cute animals - Lara most enjoyed coming up with names for a page full of cute kittens!  The Farm Sticker activity book is particularly relevant as the girls have both visited the local farm this week for spring activities so they were very much inspired to get sticking and colouring.

Also from Tiger Press is this My Little Box of Springtime Stories carry pack which is a set of 4 spring themed stories about rabbits, ducks, chicks and baby bears.  These are all short stories with lots of lovely pictures and a gentle, happy theme suitable for toddlers right up to early readers.

This little box of stories is exactly what we are looking for when searching for Easter books as gifts for the girls - a perfect non-chocolate Easter present.

  

Cooking with Kids :: Puff Pastry Easter Nests Recipe

Inspired by the 'adventurous' Easter nests ideas from the Center Parcs blog, me and my girls did a little experimenting in the kitchen today and came up with these fun puff-pastry Easter nests - something a little different but definitely something we will be making again. Our nests are made from low-fat ready-rolled puff pastry so not only are they super-quick to make but they are incredibly light. The puff pastry offers a nice savoury touch to offset the phenomenally sweet chocolatey goodness inside. Lara made full-sized Easter nests and Holly made tiny bite-sized ones containing just one egg each - they disappeared very quickly once we had made them.

Puff Pastry Easter Nests

PUFF PASTRY EASTER NESTS (Makes 12-15)

INGREDIENTS
1 pack 320g Jus-Rol Light Puff Ready Rolled Puff Pastry
75g softened butter
175g icing sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
A splash of milk
Approx. 45 chocolate mini eggs
margarine for greasing

METHOD
1. Take the Light Puff Ready Rolled Puff Pastry out of the fridge about 10 minutes before you start and pre-heat the oven to around 200 degrees centigrade.

2. Using a cookie cutter, cut out 15 flower shapes. If you don't have a flower cutter, a round cutter or scone cutter would work well too.

3. Grease a muffin tin with a little margarine and place the pastry pieces into the hollows, pressing down lightly.

4. Prick each pastry piece using a fork. If you have any baking beans, place a little foil into each round and fill up with baking beans.

5. Put into the oven for around 10-15 minutes until golden brown at the edges.

6. Allow to cool before removing the foil and baking beans. Leave to cool fully before proceeding.

7. Using a food processor (or a strong parent) beat the butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder. Use a splash of milk to soften the icing mix enough to place it into a piping bag.

8. Squidge a little chocolate icing into each pastry nest and finish off with two or three mini eggs.

9. Nom.

This is my entry to the Center Parcs and Tots 100 April challenge. If I’m chosen, I would like to visit Elveden Forest.

Easter Is Coming!

Easter is a little over a month away and I'm putting plans in place already with lots of fun Easter crafts for the girls.  We have made it a little bit of a tradition in our house that instead of buying chocolate eggs for the girls, we buy them an Easter themed book so I need to have a bit of a scout around for some book ideas.

That's not to say that the girls don't get chocolate Easter eggs at all, just that they receive them as gifts from friends and family.  This year Thorntons wanted to show us their  range of chocolate Easter eggs and gifts which all look scrumptious but we got a sneaky chance to try one out in the run up to Easter.

We chose this amazing, large, Banoffee Pie Easter Egg which is very representative of the Easter Thorntons range and includes a squiggle of different coloured chocolate as well as a huddle of exciting yummy goodness at the front - these are sweet dried banana chips and small chunks of crispy caramel.  The girls went wild for it.

Mr. B. and I loved the fact that it wasn't overly banana-y and most of the egg was pure unadulterated chocolate.  More Easter eggs should be like this!  I would be more than happy to give one of these eggs as an Easter gift... but even happier to receive one myself.

I always find Easter a really fascinating time of year.  Mr. B. and I got married on the 22nd of March which, that year, was Easter Saturday.  It is really interesting to see how much the Easter weekend can move and this year it is nearly a whole month later and will be on Sunday April 20th 2014.

Another Prize Winning Easter Bonnet

For two years in a row, my scrumptious little girl Lara has won the Easter bonnet competition at her nursery and has been presented with a prize by the mayor of Wokingham.

Part of me thinks that Lara is now cut out for a career as a milliner; her eye for fashion having developed at such a young age.  But I'm kidding myself.

Lara has won the Easter bonnet competition for a very simple reason... she has made a hat herself out of things she likes to get crafty with at home.  Her hats have been very random, usually with bits of ribbons and stickers and pipe cleaners and pom poms stuck on willy nilly.  But she isn't yet 4 years old... she's allowed to explore her creative side!

This year I was less surprised when I took Lara into nursery than I was last year. I had been prepared this time to see the array of beautiful hand-made hats and bonnets, all perfectly trimmed, coloured and crafted.  Some of them looked amazing but honestly, 80-90% of them had clearly been made my parents, not 3 or 4 year olds.  What is the point in that?  Where's the fun?  All the children who hadn't got the chance to make an Easter hat at home were invited to make a sugar-paper crown at nursery that day.  These very simple sugar-paper crowns made with random bits of tissue paper and paint to me looked so much more fun than the perfectly-formed creations of the other mums and dads.

I will admit that I helped Lara with her hat.  I helped her collect twigs in the garden, helped her to put the hair-band in to place (that was my idea... Lara was quite happy balancing it on her head).  I helped Lara with the glueing... but mainly because I don't trust her with a bottle of PVA! But Lara did all the cutting of ribbons and twigs.  She chose the eggs she wanted, and where she wanted them.  Lara said that she wanted stickers all over the base of her hat and, if we had had more time she would have painted her nest in a fine array of colours.  Lara was the boss.  And why not?

Lara's prize-winning bonnet won her a chocolate easter egg (handy because we hadn't been planning on buying her one) and a photo op. with the mayor of Wokingham which apparently brought her to tears!!!

Cooking With Children :: Raspberry and Apple Hot Cross Buns Recipe

Last weekend I spent the afternoon in the kitchen with both Lara AND Holly cooking an easter favourite - Hot Cross Buns - but with a bit of a twist. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of mixed peel and neither is Lara so, with a little inspiration from the people at Ribena Plus (who asked me to dream up an exciting easter recipe), I invented these fruity buns which still look very traditional but which taste totally fresh and exciting.

Raspberry and Apple Hot Cross Buns

Raspberry and Apple Ribena Plus Hot Cross Buns

Makes 6
Preparation time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes

INGREDIENTS

For the crosses:
10g cold unsalted butter
15g plain flour
8g caster sugar
1 teaspoon undiluted Ribena Plus Raspberry and Apple

For the buns:
350g strong white bread flour
30g caster sugar
1/2 of a 7g packet of fast-action yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
75ml warm milk
50ml undiluted Ribena Plus Raspberry and Apple
30g unsalted butter which has been melted and then cooled
1 small egg, beaten
100g fresh raspberries
1 medium-sized eating apple
1 knob of unsalted butter
sunflower oil for greasing

For the glaze:
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon undiluted Ribena Plus Raspberry and Apple
2 tablespoons water

METHOD

1. First make a shortcrust pastry for the crosses. Rub the butter, flour and sugar together with your fingertips to make a fine bread-crumb-like mixture. Add just enough of the Ribena Plus Raspberry and Apple to bring the mixture together to form a dough. Chill in the fridge for later.

2. Peel and core the apple and slice it into small pieces about 1cm cubed. Melt the knob of butter in a small pan and then gently heat the apple pieces until they soften and just begin to colour. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine 250g of the bread flour along with the caster sugar, yeast, salt, mixed spice, cinnamon and nutmeg.

4. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and add the warm milk and the Ribena Plus Rasberry and Apple. Stir gently before adding the egg and the melted butter. Stir until it just starts to come together to form a dough.

5. Add the cooled apple pieces and the whole raspberries and then use your hands to combine the fruit into the dough. The bread dough will become very sticky and very pink!

6. Once combined, place the rest of the flour on a clean work surface and then place the dough into the flour. Carefully knead the dough for at least 5 minutes. The dough will take on all of the extra bread flour and may even need a little extra flour to prevent the dough from sticking.

7. Once the bread dough is bouncy and elastic, place it into a large clean bowl that has been greased with a little oil. Cover with a piece of cling film and then place the bowl somewhere warm (we use the airing cupboard) to rise for at least 1.5 hours until doubled in size.

8. Once the dough has risen, knead it again to remove any large air bubbles and then break it up into six pieces. Roll the pieces to form round buns and then place on a greased baking tray.

9. Roll out the chilled shortcrust pastry until it is about 4mm thick. Cut it into 12 slices of about 1cm wide. Brush the tops of the buns with a little water and then stick the pastry strips to the top of each bun in a cross. Trim the pastry at the sides and tuck the edges underneath the buns to make them neat and tidy.

10. Return the buns to their warm place to rise for another 30 minutes.


11. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.

12. Bake the buns for 15 minutes and while they are cooking, make the glaze.

13. Make the glaze by placing the sugar, water and Ribena Plus Raspberry and Apple into a small pan and warming it over a small heat until the sugar has fully dissolved.

14. As soon as the buns come out of the oven, place them on a cooling rack and brush each of them with a good coating of the glaze to give them a shiny glow.

15. Serve warm.

Easter Preparations with Eggnogg and ASDA

Lara and I really started getting into the Easter spirit this weekend.  This year Easter falls on the last weekend in March and so Lara and I spent our weekend practicing baking and doing lots of craft and colouring activities with thanks to Eggnogg and ASDA.

Lara was sent a truely awesome Easter tablecloth from Eggnogg.co.uk who make colour-in crafts and accessories for kids.  The very second that I laid down our paper table cloth, Lara got to work colouring in the rabbits, eggs, spring flowers, birds and cows of all different shapes and sizes.  There is so much detail to the colour-in tablecloth that Lara could be entertained for the whole of the rest of the month!  Eggnogg also have colour-in Easter eggs, a treasure hunt and Easter bunting as part of their Easter Extravaganza.  To me, Eggnogg is such a great find and I can't wait to go back to them for some birthday bits and pieces later in the year.

On Sunday Lara went to visit a friend for tea and she was eager to make some cakes as a gift to take with her - what a great reason to crack open some of the Easter decorations and baking accessories from ASDA?

Lara and I melted chocolate over a pan of water, mixed in some golden syrup and butter and then stirred it into some crispy rice.  We spooned the chocolatey mixture into brightly coloured Easter cupcake cases from ASDA (we have matching napkins and plates too!) and then decorated our chocolatey Easter nests with mini chocolate eggs and rabbit-shaped cake toppers.

Needless to say that the Easter nests went down EXTREMELY well with Lara's little friend!

Cooking with Children :: Hot Cross Buns Recipe

Lara and I have been baking in preparation for Easter weekend. I've never made Hot Cross Buns before in my life but I seem to remember my Mum finding them quite tricky to get right. I guess that most people's expectations of a Hot Cross Bun are shaped by the soft, flat things you see in supermarkets - these a definitely not soft or flat! Baking is a good way to get children involved in the story of Easter - Lara seemed genuinely interested when I explained the origin of the cross on the bun.

I adapted this recipe for volume and ingredients (I'm not a great fan of mixed peel) from a Mary Berry classic recipe.

HOT CROSS BUN RECIPE (Makes 6)

INGREDIENTS
10g cold butter
15g plain flour
8g caster sugar
splash of water


250g strong white bread flour
30g caster sugar
1/2 a 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1⁄4 tsp ground nutmeg
75ml milk
75ml hot water
30g butter, melted and cooled
1 small egg, beaten
150g mixed dried fruit
sunflower oil for greasing


2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp water


METHOD

• Make some shortcrust pastry by rubbing together the cold butter and plain flour with your fingertips and then combining the small amount of caster sugar and just enough water to bring the ingredients together in a dough. Chill this in the fridge until much later.

• Sift (or if you're Lara, just plonk) the bread flour, sugar, yeast, salt, mixed spice, cinnamon and nutmeg into a big mixing bowl.
• Make a little well in the middle and add the milk and water then mix together.
• Add the egg and the mixed fruit and bring together to a very soft dough.
• Knead the dough on a well-floured surface for at least 5 minutes (Lara lost interest after 2!). It should be really soft and stretchy by the time that you're done. Then leave it in an oiled mixing bowl with a piece of oiled cling film or a tea towel over the top in a nice warm place to rise for about 1.5 hours until it has doubled in size.

• When you take the dough out from it's cosy hiding place, you will need to 'knock it back' i.e. give it another good kneading to0 make sure there are no huge air bubbles anywhere. Split the dough into 6 balls and shape them. Place them on a greased or lined baking tray.

• Fetch the shortcrust pastry from the fridge and roll it out to a few millimetres thick. Cut strips about 1cm wide and stick them to the top of each bun using a little water.

• Put the buns somewhere really warm to rise for another half hour while you preheat the oven to a very toasty 200 degrees centigrade.
• Bake the hot cross buns for 15 minutes (ours were a touch overcooked) and while they cook, make the glaze.
• Dissolve the sugar in the water in a small pan over a low heat until it forms a syrup. As soon as you take the buns out of the oven, paint the glaze over each bun to give them a shiny golden glow.
• Serve warm... ideally cut in half and toasted... with a knob of butter. Mmmmmm. i feel all easter-y just typing this up!