With the brightness of lemon, richness and warmth of spiced yeast dough and gentle sweetness of a scant amount of icing, hot cross buns seem to embrace the hope of spring.

The baked treat dates to medieval England and was actually banned in Tudor times "upon pain or forfeiture of all such spiced bread to the poor." The ban proved difficult to enforce, and the restriction went away sometime with the next ruler.

Read more about the history and lore of hot cross buns in Wednesday's Spokesman-Review Food section.

Meantime, here's a vintage recipe for the storied Easter treat.

Good Friday Buns

From “Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery with Numerous Illustrations,” 1875

Rub a quarter of a pound of butter into two pounds of flour. Add a pinch of salt; then mix a wine-glassful of fresh, thick yeast with a pint and a half of warmed milk; and stir these into the flour til it forms a light batter. Put the batter in a warm place to rise. When sufficiently risen, work into it half a pound of sugar, half a pound of currants, half a nutmeg, grated, and a quarter of an ounce of powdered mace. Knead these well into the dough, make it up into buns, and place them on buttered baking-tins. Make a cross on them with the black of a knife, brush a little clarified butter over the top, and let them stand a quarter of an hour before the fire. Bake in a good oven. When bread is made at home, hot cross buns may be made by mixing the currants, &c. with bread dough after it was risen. Time, one hour to let the dough rise; twenty minutes to bake. Sufficient for two dozen buns. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. for this quality.