It's Easter, otherwise known as peak hot cross bun think piece season, when editors prepare for a four-day long weekend by asking writers for listicles breaking down the zaniest hot cross bun fillings, toppings and hybrids.

But my hot cross bun think piece is different. My hot cross bun think piece is the only one brave enough to ask the question: are hot cross buns actually good?

To be clear, I'm no hot cross bun hater. You'll find no moaning about their existence when they show up on supermarket shelves precisely three minutes past Christmas from me.

I grew up eating HCBs in the lead up to Easter every year, in a good Catholic household that also ate fish and chips every Friday during Lent (the most delicious way to honour Jesus's sacrifice).

Hot cross buns are definitely not bad, but was my family only eating them because we felt we had to?

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My hot (cross) take

Here, then, is my hot cross take: Hot cross buns are a cross between bread and cake.

Hot cross buns are also not as good as either of those things.

I spent thousands of dollars of taxpayer money* asking everyday Australians why they liked hot cross buns. Two thirds of people told me it was because they liked spreading butter on them.

In my opinion, people who answered in this way are not hot cross bun fans. They are butter fans.

Therefore, 75 per cent of Australians buy hot cross buns because they like butter. Hot cross buns are just bougie raisin toast.

OK, so are hot cross buns actually good…

If you only like hot cross buns because of the butter you slather on them, does that mean you're a HCB fan or a butter fan? ( Sophie Zalokar )

Even though not one of my hot cross bun-loving friends could truthfully say they loved them more than bread or cake, my fearless hot cross prodding was testing the limits of our friendship.

Expecting to open their third eyes upon asking them 'if hot cross buns are actually good, how come you can't buy them in September?', I instead found myself with three fewer Facebook friends, and 10 fewer followers on Twitter.

"They are in some instances available all year round," my friend Yu-ching Lee told me, pointing me in the direction of a bakery in Launceston, Tasmania, which does exactly that.

One of the best pastry cooks in Sydney, Yu-ching posts most of the delicious things she bakes on her Instagram, and last week interrupted her feed of crumbles and galettes with a pile of freshly baked hot cross buns.

"I love making them and it's something to look forward to around this time of year."

Responding to yet another rude question from yours truly, she says, "I consider them more a sweet bread than cake. They're not better, they just are what they are."

I thought the same thing about the large bag of hot cross bun-flavoured M&Ms I ate for research purposes while writing this article. The vaguely spiced chocolate sweets (which don't even have a cross on them!) are definitely not better than the regular ones, they just are what they are. And what they are gets significantly worse if you eat the whole bag before you even finish the second paragraph.

Whatever your hot cross bun preference, the clock's ticking

You've got until the end of this weekend to have your fill of hot cross buns, be it the regular fruit-filled kind, slathered in butter, or the tiny cross-less chocolate kind. There's hot cross bun ice cream out there too, if you'd prefer a cold cross bun.

Some millennials have been encouraging the application of avocado to your HCBs, which is almost as bad as the pubs offering a hot cross burger on their menus this weekend, though still not as bad as this Vegemite-topped, hot-crossed atrocity unleashed on the world last week.

One thing is for sure, though: if you ingest even one crumb of hot cross bun after Easter Monday in any state of Australia except Tasmania, you'll be arrested.

See you in December, when I bravely ask the question 'is Christmas cake actually good?' (It isn't.)

*Not really. Come on, that would be crazy.