With Easter just days away, we picked up some hot facts about hot cross buns.

Marks and Spencer – who helped us with the fact-finding – is expecting to sell a third of the nation’s hot cross buns over the bank holiday weekend. That’s a whopping 30 million.

Placed end-to-end, they would reach from Sheffield to Nazareth or stacked on top of each other would scale Everest 14 times.

Traditionally eaten on Good Friday, they are made from yeast, milk, flour, butter, sugar, raisins and a combination of spices including cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and allspice. Some older recipes used saffron and mace.

In Tudor Britain, it was illegal to sell spiced buns on any other day than Good Friday, Christmas and funerals.

Superstitions about hot cross buns ranged from the belief they had medicinal powers to sailors insisting on having them on board to ensure a safe voyage. Today it is still considered good luck to hang one above your door on Good Friday.

M&S’ Lewisham store manager Millie Moses-Aguebor said: “Even though their popularity rose in the Tudor period, hot cross buns didn’t actually become ‘hot’ until the eighteenth century. During this time they were sold by street sellers who would recite a rhyme to entice customers – a rhyme that is still well known today: ‘Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns. If you have no daughters, give them to your sons. One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns.’”

The cross is often said to represent the crucifixion of Jesus and the spices inside signify the spices used to embalm his body.

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