You could do this by using the content property of CSS:
.plus {
height: 24px;
width: 24px;
display: inline-block;
background-color: black;
color: white;
font-size: 24px;
line-height: 24px;
text-align: center;
}
.plus::before {
content: "+";
}
Here's a Fiddle showing the above code.