Easter means spicy hot cross buns and butterfly cakes.

Good afternoon and, for those who celebrate, happy Good Friday! 

Aga Popęda here. To me, Easter means impressive, heavy-duty baking, and I can’t help but think that if I was in my native Poland, the baking of various Easter cakes would be very much on. 

I was curious what types of Easter-inspired baked goods I could find in Monterey County. It turns out that two Easter staples are available,both of British origins—hot cross buns at places like Rise and Roam in Carmel and Alta Bakery in Monterey, and butterfly cakes at The Great British Bake Shop in Salinas. While the latter are available daily at the British shop (the cupcake-sized treats cost $3.50 each), it’s now too late to order hot cross buns from the Carmel bakery, which was offering a half-dozen buns for $24 for those who signed up ahead of time. Luckily, you can still buy traditional hot cross buns at Alta Bakery—also $24 per six of them.  

“They are a big deal for Easter,” says Jessica Haney, the baker, chef and general manager at Rise and Roam. “We did it last year for the first time, but we didn’t really tell anybody.” This year, when the bakery put out the sign offering hot cross buns to go, people reacted immediately. When we spoke at around 10am this morning, she said they were already sold out and that people would begin picking up their orders tomorrow.

Haney went with the most traditional recipe, making her cross buns with golden raisins, currants, cinnamon and allspice. (Alta’s version contains all those ingredients, too.) A similar variety is the spiced bun with fruit, marked with a cross on the top, which has been traditionally eaten on Good Friday in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Malta and the Caribbean. Brits like to make hot cross buns for Christmas, too; they like them so much that some insist on calling them “English buns.” During the reign of Elizabeth I, the sale of hot cross buns was forbidden in England except on Good Friday, Christmas and burials. Through the religious conflicts of the time between Catholics and Protestants, the buns were present; while Anglicanism took over, hot cross buns survived it all and are still among us. Outside of their religious context, they can be made savory with eggs, bacon and pretty much whatever else you want. 

“Butterfly cakes,” says Lesley Everett, when I ask about her Easter baking preferences. Everett runs The Great British Bake Shop in Salinas with her husband, Chris. The store also does weekly deliveries to Sweet Reba’s in Carmel. “Vanilla sponge, vanilla filling and strawberry preserve,” Everett notes, deconstructing the inside of what looks like a cupcake with butterfly wings and tiny Easter eggs on top. 

Traditional British butterfly cakes are apparently sometimes called fairy cakes. They are standard not only for Easter, but any holiday—a must-have at children's birthday parties in the U.K. at the height of their popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. Part of the fun is decorating them: Sometimes the whole cake is in the shape of a butterfly, and making the wings can be a fun activity for young bakers.

Are you in the mood for Easter baked goods? Consider baking them yourself. Here’s a BBC-approved recipe for butterfly cakes and a New York Times-approved recipe for aromatic, spicy hot cross buns. Enjoy!