I was up bright and early this morning to run some boring errands, and that put me in an unusual position of luck! I got to the supermarket as it opened and was hit by a waft of hot cross buns! Tis the season!!
I made my way to the bakery and was confused because I could see hundreds of hot cross buns, clearly not baked on the premises. The way they were wrapped and the date stamps indicted they were made by an offsite bakery, and they ALL had a best before date of the 10th! And today is the 10th. These ones were clearly dead in the water.
Hot cross buns are supposed to have a shelf life of around 3 to 4 days...
So where was the smell coming from?
I approached the bakery manager who then told me where the hidden treasure was buried! I knew it! I was right! They were on another shelf near the deli. The Shelf packers were busy packing them out and the didn't even have prices on them yet!
Score! And they were cheaper than pick n pay by ZAR1.00:)
The other giveaway was that these hot cross buns came with the foil tray they were baked in, where as a mass bakery would not do that. It would be too much of an additional expense and those trays can be reused multiple times.
I scurried home like a happy bunny and tried the usual taste test experiment:
With jam and cheese
With jam
and just plain butter
These hot cross buns were so good and fresh they could have been eaten straight out of the tray. Unfortunately, I missed them being hot, but don't worry, I'll get there closer to the time!
I have already eaten a whole tray by myself so I think that's enough for me for this week... we'll see! It is my job to test them, after all!
This is how I rated these hot cross buns:
Fruit: very generous 9/10
Spice: absolutely perfect 9/10
Sugar Syrup/ stickiness 9/10
Freshness 9/10
Yumyumyumumyum!
❤️⭐❤️⭐❤️⭐❤️
Here are the previous tests. I'll list them here as I go along so we can all keep track :)
The Quest for the Perfect Hot Cross Bun - Part 1 - Pick 'n Pay