Hot Cross Bun Ice Cream Is Your New Go-To Dessert From Now Until Easter

When Boxing Day rolls around each year, it brings sales, heat, a huge food hangover from Christmas lunch and a reminder to take down your festive decorations. Increasingly, it also sparks the beginning of the annual hot cross bun debate. Should those baked morsels of bread pop up on supermarket shelves the moment that the Christmas merriment is over? Does selling hot cross buns before the new year epitomise commercialism at its worst? Or should the tasty treats simply be available all-year-round, voiding the whole argument?

Now, there's a new question to be bandied about: should you opt for traditional hot cross buns in a variety of flavours, or should you enjoy your them in ice cream form? Yes, the latter exists thanks to Woolworths, with the supermarket chain giving the whole notion of slinging hot cross buns at this time of year a summery twist.

Currently available in stores, the limited-edition dessert features raisins, Australian cream and a ripple of flavour that tastes like hot cross buns. That's good news for everyone who loves their Easter treats in classic mode with fruit baked in, and bad news for anyone who prefers chocolate, salted caramel or basically anything other than raisins in their rolls.

The tubs of hot cross bun ice cream aren't quite as decadent as New Zealand's version — a hot cross bun impaled on a waffle cone then filled with ice cream, which became available in 2018 at Auckland's Giapo. Still, if you love a good hot cross bun regardless of the time of year, then it just might be the new dessert to get you from summer until Easter.

Image: Dallas Kilponen/PPR.