Over the years I found some really simple Easter Treats to make, some are super quick and easy others are a little more time consuming, but all of them the kids (and big kids, myself included) will love!
Easter Biscuits (Organic and natural)
Ingredients:
125 g of unsalted butter (organic if available)
125 g of castor sugar (organic if available)
1 medium size egg (organic)
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g plain flour (organic)
In a bowl or electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
Add the egg and vanilla and mix.
Sift the flour and add one spoonful at a time until mixed together.
Knead the dough until smooth then wrapped in cling wrap and rest in the fridge for half an hour.
Pre-heat your oven to 180°.
Roll dough on a lightly flowered surface to around 4 mm thick and cut your shapes.
Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Cook until light golden brown around the edges.
Notes:
They will cook quite quickly the first batch may take 12 minutes the second 10 and the third 8 as your oven gets hotter, watch them carefully so that they do not burn.
It’s a good idea to make a double batch and keep the dough in the fridge to make another batch (use within two days).
It makes a very soft dough so you may need to add a little flour when you start rolling until it rolls well. Don’t overwork the dough as it may become tough.
Icing
Ingredients:
(Enough icing for 2 batches of biscuits, halve if only making one batch).
500g sifted icing sugar
2 medium egg whites (organic)
1 tsp lemon juice
Beat egg whites until they make peaks. Add icing sugar and lemon juice and beat for approximately 5 to 7 minutes with electric mixer.
Add natural food colour. To ensure the icing will flood the cookies test the icing by running a knife through the centre of your mixture and it should very slowly close together and re-form a solid mass. Adding food colour can change the thickness of the icing so you may need to add more icing sugar to retain the right consistency after adding colour. Make up separate icing bags of the colours you would like for your biscuits.
To do flooding icing, pipe the outline of the shape you want to pipe then flood the inside using a line motion backwards and forwards until you filled the centre do not add another accent colour or pattern until that first layer of flooding is dry. There are lots of videos on YouTube about flooding icing which will help so just do a Google search for those if you want to see it done.
Decorating cupcakes
I’m happy to use store bought packets for cupcakes as they’re at a bit of a treat not an everyday snack. You can add an Easter theme with some Flake chocolate broken up into the shape of a birds nest on top of the icing and then add some speckled chocolate eggs to the top and add few little chickens. They are sooo cute!
Another sweet idea is to make little chickens and bunny cupcakes. You can buy icing that can be rolled into flatsheets and cut into shapes for the bunny ears and chicken beaks. Use lollies to make the bunny whiskers and with the huge ranges of cake decorating sprinkles in supermarkets you can create your very own characters.
Easter Rabbit Marshmallows
These rabbits just require tooth picks, marshmallows and icing sugar using the same recipe from the biscuits above for the icing and some coloured sprinkles to put on the ears. Simply construct your bunny with toothpicks and use icing as glue and decorate.
Lastly I like to turn the Easter Egg Hunt into an activity that lasts hours. By hiding Easter Theme colouring books and activity books as well as eggs filled with stickers, eggs and novelty erasers after the Easter Egg Hunt the kids can spend hours creating drawings and collages and even making little baskets and bunny ears etc from the activity books.
Have a Happy Easter and I hope you have some fun with these ideas!
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