Busted.

Some wise guy (actually gal) has already pointed out that hot cross buns are not a pastry per se. Alright yes, Miss Know-It-All, you’re technically right. The textbook definition of a pastry is a sweet or savory that uses unleavened dough, like puff pastry, tart crust, strudel dough and the like, as a base. That’s not actually true in practice, though, since other bases common to pastry counters (Danish dough, croissant dough, brioche dough, spongecake, even some kinds of pie dough) contain leavening. Personally, I think of a pastry as any sweet or savory baked good with a filling or layers, which seems to make a lot more sense.

So OK, that’s nice for you, you’re saying. But how does that refute Miss Know-It-All’s argument? Well, it doesn’t is the answer. The whole thing was just a diversion. But, seeing as how you’re gonna put the muscle on me…I’ll admit, flatfoot, that hot cross buns are a bread. Sure, they have a little icing and some sweet things inside, but they’re risen, they’re uniform all the way through…they’re a bread. So what? What are you gonna do about it? Report me? To who? I’m a blogger! I’m unaccountable!

But while I’m spilling my guts, I might as well tell you that I don’t consider brioche a bread either — though it clearly is one! Ha! What do you think of that? It’s incredibly rich, it’s filled with eggs, in my mind it’s more like a pastry! Which means this week we’ve got either two breads or two pastries — or two of neither depending on how you want to look at it! What do you think of that, copper?!

And I think crullers aren’t actually doughnuts! And I think Mae West was really a man! (God this feels good!). And I cheated on my college piano final! And I never liked Dances with Wolves! Oh Lord, I could get used to this…