Easter Baking Ideas

Easter baking is some of the most delightful baking of the year. With the Easter message of reflection and renewal, after the sombre days of the feast have passed a joyful celebration with merry colours and appropriate dishes confirms that life can begin again. Baking itself is more of a pleasure as well at this time of year as kitchens are becoming cooler after the summer's heat.

Leading up to the celebration day, a traditional Easter baked good served for Good Friday breakfasts, and one with a very long history, is the hot, crossed bun. In London in 1592, the Clerk of the Markets decreed that bakers were allowed to sell such spiced breads only at burials, the Friday before Easter, or at Christmas.

Hot Crossed Easter Buns
These round, soft, yeast buns are flavoured usually with cinnamon or mixed spices, and have sultanas kneaded into the dough before baking. There are many variations to the recipes with some adding currants, citrus peel, and other dried fruits, such as apricots, as well.

As the name suggests, the top of the bun has a simple decoration of a cross. Sometimes the cross was incised with a knife before baking; often it was made by adding strips of pastry. In modern times, it is likely that the cross shape is piped on with icing after the buns have cooled slightly.

If baking Easter buns is a bit out of scope for you, then another great Easter baking idea is biscuits, also a wonderful tradition.

Easter Egg Biscuits
Easter biscuits can be quite elaborate, if the fancy strikes you. For something simple, an easy idea for including children in the preparations is to start with a plain arrowroot biscuit.

Give each child a blunt butter knife and dishes with different coloured icing, as well as a bowl containing lollies, jelly beans, shredded coconut or sprinkles. They can use the lollies and sprinkles to decorate the biscuits they have spread with the icing mixture so it looks like an Easter egg.

Icing can also be spooned into a small snap-lock bag. Snip off a tiny corner of the bag and the children can use it to pipe stripes and other designs onto their biscuits.

Home-baking your Easter biscuits will add more options to your decorating as you can cut the homemade, rolled dough into the shape of bunnies, chicks and crosses.

Baking an Easter Cake
A little bit outside of the box for Easter baking, but always a favourite, is an Easter carrot cake. Carrot cakes can be very rich and a small slice will make a full serving. The recipe below is an adaption of this favourite in a loaf form that makes the dessert easier to transport or to give as a gift.

Easter Carrot Cake

Ingredients:
2 carrots (about 300g)
1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground mixed spices
1/2 cup (80g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (125ml) oil
1/2 cup (125ml) golden syrup
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
Optional: chopped walnuts, up to 1/2 cup, or sultans, up to 2/3 cup

Method:
Preheat oven to 170C. Lightly oil a loaf pan and cover the bottom with parchment paper. Wash and grate two carrots, set aside. Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spices into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, brown sugar, golden syrup, oil and vanilla. Carefully stir the oil mixture into the dry ingredients. Then mix in the carrots being careful not to over stir. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for approximately 75 minutes. Cool the Easter cake completely before icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

Icing Ingredients:
250g spreadable cream cheese
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup pure icing sugar
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Method:
Beat the first three ingredients together until smooth. Add the cream of tartar and beat for an additional minute. When the cake loaf is cool, spread with icing.

You can then decorate the cake with Easter themed items such as purple and white flowers (sugared violets can be nice), sprigs of rosemary, 11 small chocolate Easter eggs around the outside (to represent Jesuss disciples minus Judas) and a larger egg in the centre.

About the Author:
--AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY--

Chelsi Woolz enjoys cooking and is only too happy to share her baking tips and cake decorating ideas with friends, family and her readers!

Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com

Tags: easter baking

, easter cake

, cake baking

, recipes

, australia

Related....

Videos...

Recent Recipes Articles

Sandwich Recipes By: Emily Amelia Inglis | May 30th 2012 - The baked corn sandwich is no ordinary sandwich, and this sandwich recipe outlined proves that sandwich recipes can include just a few simple additional steps to make the healthy and tasty bread even more delicious for your impressed guests.

Sandwich Recipes

Naan Bread Recipes By: Emily Amelia Inglis | May 30th 2012 - Once you are more experienced with Indian cooking you can make adjustments to the recipes you find, but it is best if you follow them carefully for now. Whatever you do, make sure that you look over the naan bread recipes you find and select one that you know will complement the di ...

Naan Bread Recipes

Lamb Rogan Josh Recipe By: Emily Amelia Inglis | May 30th 2012 - The Lamb Rogan Josh recipe has been studied and mastered by many chefs worldwide, and though they have made a few modifications to suit the palate of those who are not used to very pungent food, this very tasty lamb curry is one of the most popular variants of Indian food served in ...

Lamb Rogan Josh Recipe

Healthy Bread By: Emily Amelia Inglis | May 30th 2012 - There are four basic food groups which make up a decent balanced diet. One of these food groups is the grain group. This is where you have your breads and anything else which uses grain like bread and pasta.

Healthy Bread

Chicken Tikka Sandwich Recipe By: Emily Amelia Inglis | May 30th 2012 - All it takes to make a memorable sandwich that everyone will enjoy is a Chicken Tikka sandwich recipe, a few simple ingredients, and ten minutes of fun cooking.

chicken tikka sandwich recipe

Green Tea Detox With Carrots And Beets In A Smoothie By: David Beck | May 30th 2012 - Here, again is another feature of a green tea detox recipe. Detoxing through a very refreshing drink is becoming a trend nowadays. All-natural and God-given are the ingredients in our recipe for today! This recipe is from the lovely site Jeanettes Healthy Living. Let me do the h ...

Cod, Tuna, And Shrimp "�" Most Popular Seafood Items By: Frozenseafoodchina | May 30th 2012 - People always like cod, tuna, and shrimp than any other fresh or frozen seafood all across the world. These are consumed in greater quantity because of their over abundance and easy availability not only in coastal places, but everywhere.

frozen blue mussels

frozen squid

seafood from china

Spicy, Crunchy Asian Salad By: R.A. Butters | May 29th 2012 - This crowd-pleasing crunchy Asian style salad combines tender noodles with crispy fresh vegetables and a tangy sweet and sour dressing.

salad

asian

spicy

Good Food Guide For The Best Restaurants In Melbourne By: Salona | May 29th 2012 - Best restaurants in Melbourne provide services that come under different sectors like good food guide, function rooms Melbourne and Greek restaurants. Let us know about them in detail through this article.

Good food guide

Function rooms Melbourne

Greek restaurant

Cheddar Cheese By: Mirza Khurram Baig | May 27th 2012 - Cheddar is the most admired and in-demand form of cheese in the UK and its production method has been copied by cheese producers around the world.

Kraft cheddar cheese

cream cheese spread

Comments

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search for it!

Site Navigation: