Easter Bunny Tails

Afternoon tea for us today, Good Friday, has been Easter Bunny Tails and fresh out of the oven Hot Cross Buns.  Easter weekend is usually a time where we go away, but we've opted to stay home this year, which has allowed me to go a bit crazy on the Easter crafts and baking.

These Bunny Tails are quick to make.  Simply dip marshallows into melted white chocolate, and then into thread coconut and allow to dry before eating.

Bliss.  Enjoy your family time this Easter where ever you are.  Happy Easter all.

Easter Egg Tree

Decorating for Easter is not what we do in our house but an abundance of plastic Easter eggs has had us dabbling in a bit of Easter decorating cheer.  

With a bit of help from me, the kids decorated this Easter Egg 'Tree' and it is proudly on show as our table centre place.  I have to say the idea of decorating in bright spring pastel colours is appealing more to me as the days get darker and colder.  

Our tree was simple to make.  The kids gathered branches from the half dead shrubs outside our house and arranged them in a mason jar.  They needed help with the strings on the eggs, but did all the arranging themselves.

I am thinking of maybe filling them for Easter morning with Chocolate Raisins as an extra Easter Bunny surprise.

 

Easter Cornflake Nests

These are dangerously delicious.  Shhhh, I didn't stop at just one.... but don't tell my children that. It wasn't me hiding in the Harry Potter cupboard under our stairs eating a sneaky second one.  Nope.  No way.

These are so quick and easy to put together.  In fact, apart from some assistance to melt the chocolate, you could let the kids do the whole thing themselves.

300 grams milk chocolate melts
135 grams cornflakes
Packet of Cadbury Mini Eggs (or similar)

Melt the chocolate melts following the instructions on the packet.  Allow chocolate to cool slightly and then mix the cornflakes through until they are evenly coated.

Spoon mixture into 12 muffin cases and decorate with Mini Eggs.  Allow to set before eating (I just left mine on the bench for half an hour).

Yum!

Marbled Eggs for Easter

Pictures of these eggs have been floating around Pinterest in the lead up to Easter.  I thought they'd be a great surprise addition to the kids lunchboxes this week, so gave them a trial run last night.

They do look more like they would suit Halloween though, than Easter, don't you think?

Easy to make.  Just hard boil your eggs.  Gently crack the surface with a spoon or by rolling along the bench top.  Pop into a ziplock bag with food colouring of your choice.  Rub the eggs so the food colouring covers the whole surface.  Pop onto a rack to dry, ensuring there is newspaper underneath to catch any drips of colouring.  Once dry, peel.

This was my afternoon tea.  The St Patricks Day meets Halloween edition?

Royal Icing Easter Egg Cupcakes

I've been trawling the internet trying to find an Easter cupcake decorating idea that doesn't involve tiny Easter Egg topped cupcakes or chicken cupcakes.  I wanted to try something a bit different.

I saw a pin on Pinterest which inspired this idea.  I soon discovered that I didn't have a very steady hand, and didn't like to pay attention to detail, so they were a bit messy, but I still love how they turned out.

I drew my egg template onto baking paper, drawing 20 eggs for 12 cupcakes (allowing for breakages, child disasters etc).

I made up my Royal Icing (I cheat and buy mine in a packet from the supermarket).  I mixed it until peaks appeared, so it was a nice firm consistency for piping.

Flipping my baking paper over, so the drawing was on the opposite side to where I was piping, I then simply piped following the egg design, and decorated them using various colours.  I left them to dry for two days before attempting to use them on the cupcakes.  Its a good idea for the 'stick' part of the design to be quite thick to help avoid snapping while placing them in the cupcakes.

I baked a simple Vanilla cupcake, adding a Mini Creme Egg in each centre before baking, and iced with a Cream Cheese Icing.  Using a kebab stick, I made holes in the cakes first before inserting my Royal Icing Eggs.

This is what happens when you leave a 2 year old unattended with a cupcake (thats my white photography background its squished on) ... I've no idea what she was thinking.  I would of eaten it.

Marbled Jelly Bean Eggs

I saw this idea in my latest Thats Life magazine.  My egg turned out WAY brighter than I expected, but I am still really pleased with the result and will be making these as gifts next Easter.

What you need:
Egg shaped chocolate moulds
White Nestle Melts
Gel colouring in your choice of colours
Jelly beans

Polish your chocolate moulds with cotton balls or muslin. 

Melt your chocolate (follow packet instructions) and divide the chocolate between three bowls.  Tint two portions in your choice of colours and leave one white.  Let it cool slightly.

Spoon equal amounts of each chocolate into each mould, half filling each one.  Using the back of a spoon, swirl the chocolate up the sides of the mould.  Balancing the moulds so they are lying even, place them into the fridge for a quick set or a cool dark place (not the fridge) for a slower set.  Chocolate is better set outside the fridge, so if you have the time, place it in a cool dark place.  I left mine in the cupboard overnight.  You know when it is set as the chocolate appears dull and will of shrunk away from the sides of the mould.

Carefully remove the chocolate from the mould.  I am not sure if there is a trick to this, apart from making sure your chocolate has fully set and being VERY careful!

For the next bit you need to be quick! The hubby helped me here.  Get the right amount of jelly beans for half filling your egg ready to go.  Heat a clean, dry and empty saucepan and gently place, one at a time, each egg flat side down onto the warm bottom until they melt slightly.  Be fast here.  Quickly place the jelly beans into one half and join the two halves together, holding for a few seconds until they are set together.

You can choose to also seal the two eggs together with left over melted chocolate instead of the above, but I liked melting the edges as it evened out any lumps or ridges on the edges and sealed it much neater.

You can now wrap in cellophane or foil egg wrapping and give as gifts.  The hubby and I have decided next year we are going to make these and fill with non edible treats, such as a match box car etc to make our own versions of Kinder Surprises for the children. 

I haven't worked with chocolate much, aside from dabbling each Christmas in making my own moulded chocolates, and I have decided I really enjoy it and am looking forward to next Easter so I can really have a good play.

Easter Lemon Cupcakes

Who needs an excuse to make a batch of cupcakes?  My boys asked me for Easter Cupcakes this morning, so we made these for morning tea. 

I used my basic vanilla cupcake recipe found here.  Obviously omit the blue food colouring, and add a tablespoon or so of lemon rind into the butter and sugar creaming process.

Decorate as you please.  I had some Raisin Eggs that I found stashed in my baking container, so just popped those on the top of butter icing. 

Roll on tomorrow when the real sugar high begins!

Breadmaker Hot Cross Buns

I've been making these for the last 4 years and never does a batch last more than an hour.  They are divine.  Need I say more!  You will need to follow your breadmakers instructions for dough making.

Ingredients (in order of how they should go into the breadmaker)
3 teaspoons Surebake yeast
450g white flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons milk powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon orange rind
1 egg
200 ml water

3/4 cup sultanas
2 tablespoons mixed peel

Put all ingredients in your breadmaker in the order above and follow your breadmakers instructions on making dough.

Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise for 20 - 30 minutes.  Or if you are lazy like me you can just leave in your breadmaker.

Shape into 10 - 12 buns depending on size.

Cover and leave to rise in a warm place (30 - 35 degrees) for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Put on crosses.  To make crosses mix 1/2 cup of flour with 2 tablespoons of oil, and then add sufficient water to make a stiff paste.  Put into a piping bag and pipe into the shape of crosses.

Bake in a preheated 200 degree oven for 15 -25 minutes or until golden brown.  Brush over glaze.  To make glaze boil together 3 tablespoons milk with 3 tablespoons of castor sugar until syrupy.

Lather with butter and enjoy hot from the oven.  Hmmmm.

Easter Cookies

This was a fun project I completed with the kids.  Danger Mouse loves being in the kitchen with me and Sprat enjoys icing biscuits as presents for everyone.  Being Easter how could I resist getting them to decorate Easter Egg shaped cookies.  While they were concentrating on painting them it gave me a good opportunity to explain why we celebrate Easter, that its not just about chocolate and bunnies.

I made my Basic Butter Biscuit recipe found here and iced with Royal Icing.  I then just mixed some liquid food colouring with a bit of water, gave the kids some paint brushes and let them go for it.

I was a bit worried about letting the children loose with food colouring, but the only messy incident we had was when I knocked over a cup of yellow food colouring!

Here is Sprat with his rainbow cookie I made him using Writing Icing.