Hot Cross Buns: from Cromwell to capitalism. Official bans to Victorian London street food
The tradition of Hot Cross Buns comes from a positive Good Friday tradition of baking bread or biscuits on the day which was meant to bring good luck.
This became eventually the Hot Cross Bun. Production in bakeries was banned during the Elizabethan era for reasons of religious doctrine and during the Commonwealth from 1649-1660 because of dislike of the doctrine. Private home baking of them no doubt continued.
Like all the best traditions with the rise of market capitalism the production of Hot Cross Buns was commercialised for profit and by the 1820s they were being street sold in London.
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