I like to start with champagne and nibbles, and maybe home made canapes (in our family we always make the most of an excuse to drink champagne, it's my second favourite drink, the first being a cup of tea). These are mini filo tarts with brie, cranberry and rocket, served warm. I feel a blog post devoted to canapes both sweet and savoury coming on soon.
This year we had a small haunch of venison for the main course, with roast potatoes and vegetables - but not carrots as my parents seem to have a lot of carrots in the dining room at the retirement community where they live and Mum had requested that we didn't have them! In previous years we have had lamb with Janssen's temptation - a very unhealthy but delicious potato gratin with anchovies and cream in.
I do have to admit though, that there is no getting away from the fact that Easter is really ALL about chocolate treats. And the dessert is my favourite part of Easter Sunday/Monday lunch. I've discovered that when it comes to Cadbury's mini eggs and creme eggs,the possibilities are endless. Two years ago I made an Easter themed trifle with hot cross buns in the bottom soaked in vanilla liqueur, raspberries, grapes, peaches, three kinds of jelly (lemon, raspberry and lime), halved mini creme eggs, vanilla custard and topped with whipped cream, silver shimmer spray, chocolate hearts and mini eggs!
This year I made a creme egg cheesecake, with chopped creme eggs in the cheesecake mixture and topped with more creme eggs drizzled with milk and white chocolate, plus white chocolate coloured yellow with food colouring paste to look like the egg yolk. It was made in a 9 inch tin so was the tallest cheesecake I've ever made. In fact I made two, one for the family and the other as an Easter present for my department at work.
I havealso made an Easter themed chocolate cake, this had maltesers in it and on it, and the mixture had a touch of Horlicks in it to give a malteser-y flavour:
It really is better to not even think about calories in the case of the above. It's usually one of those days in the year when you don't really want anything else to eat for the whole day, but if you do there is always a hot cross bun or an Easter nest cupcake:
The hot cross buns were made for an Easter bake off at the hospital where I work, and they didn't even get placed, but I was still pleased with how they turned out, I love the sticky glaze. My cousin once accidentally made some with cumin instead of cinnamon, I suggested trying them with cheese. Many of the best discoveries are made by accident!
I hope all my readers had a Happy Easter, and have many more happy ones in years to come.
Thank you for reading,
Caroline :-)
