Only a few days left before the hot cross buns disappear for another year. I know we are meant to eat them only on Good Friday but I LOVE them! The trouble is that right now I have my foot in a lumbering moon boot so the last thing my body needs is extra carbohydrate. I’m just not burning up enough energy i.e. exercising enough, to indulge in an extra 830kJ (200 calories) per hot cross bun. And that’s without any butter or margarine!

In my pantry is an opened pack of hot cross buns, mostly eaten by me, and an opened pack of marshmallow Easter eggs – pineapple lump flavoured (gross) – mostly eaten by my husband and son. What’s interesting is that one hot cross bun has twice the kilojoules of a marshmallow Easter Egg. You get more sugar and saturated fat in the Easter Egg – almost 3 teaspoons sugar and half a teaspoon of fat, mostly saturated. In comparison a hot cross bun has half the sugar and less fat, mostly unsaturated.

But if weight is your big priority, those yummy hot cross buns are perilous. Two Weet-bix with half a cup of milk has less kilojoules than one hot cross bun. But it’s just not the same. So I’m not giving up my hot cross buns but I am limiting them more than I would if I was able to exercise. That is until Good Friday when I will be making my own hot cross buns to remember this special day. Look out for the recipe and photo this weekend. Happy Easter!