Alison Holst's Kitchen Diary vol 6. Jolly good Hot Cross Bun recipe, even my non-raisin-eater ate them raisins and all. I didn't challenge the children too far by putting candied peel in, much as I like it in my buns I didn't have any in the pantry and the shops were closed.
Every "young mum" in the country owned at least one of Mrs Holst's books in late 70s and early 80s. My mum got the new Kitchen Diary every year, I think they were popular Christmas presents, and most years our Christmas cake came from these books. I found vols 4 and 6 on an op-shop trawl, and couldn't resist taking them home. Reading through I'm hit with enormous waves of nostalgia - the line drawings by Alison's "food stylist" sister and the retro recipes take me straight back to my childhood.
The recipes are surprisingly modern and useful for the most part, although a few curried chicken dishes leave me cold. Lots of ideas for using up your seasonal surplus, which was probably very unfashionable during the later '80s and '90s, but is right in tune with our more enlightened "modern" times :-) How funny that I've become my hippy mother after all. Anyway, should you find any old Kitchen Diaries, I advise you snap them up and relive your childhood too.
We enjoyed our buns with coffee in genuine 1970's brown-glazed artisan pottery mugs. Perfect.
I'm a firm Alison devotee...was hooked from Meals Without Meat that my Mum gave me when I went flatting. My buns DID have peel in them - compulsory;-)
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