I got the idea to make hot cross buns for my host family at Easter. Unfortunately, I was too busy at the time and so it’s taken me until today to make this happen.
My host family were initially very impressed at the idea.
They particularly liked the fact that a ‘Muzungu’ (white person) would
acknowledge the significance of Jesus on the cross. I didn’t like to correct this view and say
that I am a typical English atheist ready to embrace anything I can eat.
There were 3 of us who had taken on the challenge of baking
today; 2 were suffering debilitating hangovers and 1 had an oven in her host
home. Perfect.
The day started easily enough when I went round the
supermarket to stock up on ingredients. It’s a bit hard to know how many grams
of sugar ‘3/4 cup’ is, but I managed. Luckily for me none of the Kenyans have
had hot cross buns before and so they won’t know if I mess up!
The more I cook in Kenya the more
I learn. The egg shells here are tough, for instance, and so in order to crack
an egg, you should tap it against the wall rather than the plastic mixing bowl.
It feels quite counter intuitive, and I’m sure my UK-mother would be alarmed, but
it’s much more effective. The recipe also required a lot of kneading. It’s not
something I’ve ever had to do much of before and I would have been very
unconfident if it were not for the fact that two of my entrepreneurs have
patiently taught me to knead dough within the past month (one was a baker and I
was learning his trade, the other wanted to find an activity I could do with
his mother), both believed themselves to be my first teacher (clearly I was a
slow learner!). It was nice to be able to put these skills to good use and soon
our dough was looking nice and smooth
After 2 rounds of kneading and leaving the current filled
dough to prove while naps were taken, we were ready to put the 19 spiced balls
of dough in the oven on gas mark 3 (although I can’t be 100% sure about this as
I know very little about gas marks, it may be that 3 was a poor guess).
Lighting the oven was a bit of a faff because it made us so nervous to put our
hands inside a flammable gas chamber while holding a lit match. Worse still,
the oven kept going out once we turned the gas all the way down to gas mark 3
and cockroaches continued running out which was quite off-putting. Presumably
they weren’t enjoying the gas chamber either (although I’m glad they were
running away from the baking tray – it seems like the most hygienic
direction).
Very little cooking time had elapsed when the oven ran out
of gas and everything came to an abrupt halt. My host by now was fast asleep on
her sofa and we didn’t like to disturb her more than necessary so we decided to
take a couple of still squishy buns to a nearby house with a microwave. We were
welcomed there by the friendly resident volunteer-host-mother (Elizabeth) and
given a cheerful lesson in how to operate the necessary appliance. She appeared
to have a great deal of faith in our ability to bake bread in her microwave;
which was good, at least someone did.
3 minutes later the microwave pinged and we took out a
piping hot bun. I know that microwaves tend to cook from the inside out and so
although the outside didn’t look cooked (the cross was barely visible – it was white
against beige) we felt that it might taste good inside. We burnt our fingers investigating
this and were surprised to find that the inside was actually like toast. (There’s
a reason we don’t microwave sandwiches back home and this is it). We were just
about to put a second one in for a shorter amount of time (alternative options
were few!) when the power cut out. This is not uncommon in Kenyan households
but it’s not unannoying either. Now we really were challenged.
The first thing to do was make a list of people we knew
nearby with ovens. The list was quite long, but when we made a few enquiries we
found that not a single one of these ovens were operative! There was one family
we knew with a functioning oven that lived a good distance away and eventually
we resorted to asking them if we could visit (it was that or try and cook the
buns in a borrowed toaster and I wanted to keep that as a very last resort). However,
when I got in touch I was dismayed to find that their oven was electric and,
while this meant there would be no more trouble with gas marks, it was also the
case that we still couldn’t be helped until the power came back. I decided to
sit it out and waited for the power. It came on at my side of town at about
5pm, dusk was at 6:30pm and I didn’t get news that light was back at the oven
side of town until 7pm. I was beginning to lose my sense of humor at this
point. Hot cross buns were more trouble than they were worth. Walking around
after dark here is not advisable, particularly if you are a lone female with
pasty white arms glowing like a beacon advertising your presence. I stomped off
to my various friend’s houses to find the trays of buns I had stranded in
everyone’s kitchens. Firstly to my friend with the exhausted gas oven (no luck,
her house was locked) and then to Elizabeth’s house with the tray of buns in
her microwave…if only I could identify her gate. I did eventually find a house
that looked like hers. I would have been more confident if it were not for the rawkus
female voices I could hear inside as I knocked hesitantly on the door – I’m
sure that the homeowner I’d come to meet was quite a quiet lady. I felt such
relief as Elizabeth opened the door and invited me in. As I was ushered into
the kitchen I saw Jane, another host-mum and owner of the kitchen I had
occupied earlier in the day. The ladies were having a wonderful time. Theirs
were the clamorous voices I had heard on the doorstep. They were very pleased
to see me and amazed me by opening the oven door to ask me if the buns were
ready yet. I didn’t even know Elizabeth had a functioning oven! Actually, as it
transpired, nor did she until Jane had come over and decided to use it, thereby
turning it on for the first time since it had been purchased. It turned out
that they had been trying to get hold of me for some time in order to ask me to
help them know when the buns were done.
It seemed to me that I’d arrived at the perfect time, just
as everything was looking nicely browned. I was wrong again (of course – why change
a winning theme). As I ignorantly offered to prepare these two wonderful ladies
the first taste, I picked up a bun, knife in hand, ready to cut it in half, and
realized that only the top half was cooked. The bottom was still cold and
doughy. That was unexpected.
What I hadn’t appreciated is that what we had was not an
oven so much as a grill, so it was necessary to turn every bun upside-down in
order to cook the bottoms too. Unorthodox but effective.
As we waited for the buns to finish, volunteers began to
fill the house, joining the host mums and me. By the time the batch was ready
there were 9 mouths to feed, 5 of which had never tasted this Eastertime
classic before. It pleased me so much to slather my UK traditions in melted
butter and share them with my Kenyan friends that I very nearly forgot the
stress I’d gone through to produce it.
My host sister wants me to cook her pizza next week. I’m not
sure I can cope.
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