I'm getting just a little excited. It's nearly Easter!!!!!! No seriously, we are less than two weeks away from Hot Cross Bun Making Day. How can you not be excited?

Just to be perfectly honestly I didn't realize how close Easter was until a few days ago. Now I have less than two weeks to get my baking supplies sorted. My favorite part of Easter is baking. Screw the chocolate milk made from hollow eggs, I want hot-cross buns. I introduced my bf to them a few years ago. He once said that me making the perfect Hot cross bun = a ring on my finger. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect recipe - I'm just taking a guess here but I don't expect to reach 5/5 stars until I'm about 70.

I do sometimes take planning hot cross buns to the extreme:

#1 find recipes. I always use one that did well the year before. I'm allowed one less-traditional recipe (but must use crosses). And the third one is usually one that I think sounds interesting. This year I have four I want to do. I want to play with my milk infused recipe a bit. I wish to redo my wholemeal ones. I would love an apple recipe (less-traditional) and I have a stout recipe that I would like to try (also non-traditional). I'm thinking my milk infused recipe will fuse with an apple one and that way I have three. The biggest problem - none of those are completely traditional. Don't forget to print them off

#2 making sure I have enough supplies. I have run out of mixed spice. I need to make some because I don't think I can buy it here without traveling hours to a shop, which may not even have any. I need to buy enough flour. Hopefully non-additive bread flour, I don't need it pre-salted and fatted. Really! And running out is bad. Because the deadline for hot cross buns is about 5.30am. Supermarket opens at 8am. Yeah... lets not do that. Oh I long for the days of 24/7 supermarkets. Or at least ones open at 6am... I don't think I have enough raisins (and I always need extra, they tend to disappear). I don't have enough citrus (but that can wait). I probably don't have enough butter (because lets face it, having no butter left to smear on the hot fresh out of the oven buns is a crime.) Ah I need to make that list and go shopping.

#3 don't forget the keep-me-awake things like carrot sticks and apples. Oh and coffee. I better not run out of that if I'm staying up all night baking so my bf can have early hot cross buns. And making three different recipes does really require an all nighter. I know from experience that falling asleep means you don't realize that your dough hasn't risen because it isn't warm enough. Fixing that when you were planning to wake up and put them in the oven screws up timing.

#4 making a timetable. This to me is very important. I have an oven that lets me bake about 12 hot cross buns at once. 3 recipes usually have me making 60+... yeah that's a long time baking. at least most of it is on the cheaper power rate. I need to have the rising times nicely worked out so I prep one lot of buns to do their last rise when the others start going in the oven. Efficiency is fun to have on paper. It never works out like that in practice IMO.

#5 cleaning the kitchen. I really do need all my bench space when making buns. All dishes need to be done, the benches need to be well cleaned (hello kneading surface).

#6 making a playlist. Oh yeah, I need kneading music/debates. Otherwise I under-knead my dough. This is bad. If all goes well no heat pads are needed for the whole night. One may dream right? I must prep those too.

#7 deciding on a very light meal for dinner Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Because lets face it, when eating kilos of buns in a few days, you don't want something heavy and unhealthy-feeling to eat in the evening.

#8 deciding our "Lent" every-second-day-is-vegetarian rule can sort of stay. While I dislike winter vegetarianism, I do like trying out alternative meals to the norm: leek risotto, pumpkin stew, vegetarian chili, lentil lasagna, salsify, leek and parsnip gratin just to name a few. I just find most recipes don't stick to the seasonal veggies I need to use up (leek, pumpkin, salsify, parsnip, dried beans). Summer-style vegetarian recipes are awesome because usually I have everything in my garden in excessive amounts. I like getting challenged to make new foods and find new fun recipes but only if I get the occasional break. Light vegetarian meals for Easter weekend =

#9 finding my camera so the photos will be somewhat ok. I hope none will need to go into the "shit I fucked up" thread, but realistically speaking I make three recipes because there is usually always one I screw up or make look ugly

Oh yeah, I'm planning on making a bread rabbit this year. It better work well. My last attempt was pitiful (I made a woven basket too iirc). Don't tell the bf because he thinks that isn't traditional. I will call it the integration bun. I'm just not sure if I want to go for:

or

Either way it will be made with hot cross bun dough, because we really don't need to eat any more bread than that

Ah Easter, don't creep up on me so fast. I need time to really decide on my recipes