Hey y'all - people have been saying that I should use this blog more, and I could sure use an outlet, so let's do it. I'm not about to say that this will be good, or interesting; but hey, it's something.

Maybe one day I'll write about what happened between Philadelphia and today, but it'll come when it comes. Today, I want to blog about my Grandmother's hot cross buns.

Every year in the spring, for the last 50 years, my Grandmother has made hot cross buns. The year she got married, her husband asked her whether she could make hot cross buns for Easter and she told him that yes, she could; not telling him that she had never made them before. She went to her mother (my great-grandmother) and got an old recipe, and has made them for her family ever since. Why no one in our family makes these more often than just Easter is beyond me, because they are easily my favourite homemade treat. It is a tradition that I want to pass on to my family - not only to preserve her memory, but so that I can have a reason to make and eat piles of the doughy confections.

I really wish I had a picture to share with you. They're soft cinnamony rolls full of raisins, eggwashed and browned with a piped cross in cream cheese icing across the top. The piping tip used for the cross has never changed. They're best eaten fresh the day they're baked, obviously; but they're also great if you cut them in half and slather the insides with the cream cheese icing from the top - and microwaved for 10 seconds or so. They're the best midnight snack, or the perfect breakfast. When I get the recipe, maybe I'll share it with you.

She dropped off a few of them tonight for me. I'm having the hardest time trying to space them out over the next few days, when I've already ate one and only have 3 left. What can I say, they're fresh!