Easter Recipes

Chocolate Eggs

1 large egg
1 needle
100g plain or milk chocolate
1 egg cup
1 small jug
sugar flowers or white icing

Use the needle to make a fairly big hole in the to of the egg. Shake out the yolk and white into a bowl to cook later.

Melt the chocolate in a small pan set in a larger pan of boiling water. Pour the melted chocolate into the jug.

When the emptied egg has dried out, support it in an egg cup and pour the melted chocolate through the hole.

Leave the egg in a cool place to harden, then break open the shell.

You can decorate the chocolate egg with sugar lowers stuck on with more melted chocolate, or with swirls of white icing squeezed through an icing nozzle.

Easter Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups of sugar
3 eggs
3 cups of sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and beat well.

Sift the dry ingredients and add them to the creamed mixture.

Add the milk and the vanilla and chill the dough for an hour.

Roll the dough out.

Dip a rabbit-shaped cookie cutter into flour and cut the cookies.

Place them on a greased baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Ma'amoul

300g flour
150g butter
2 tablespoons of milk
a few drops of rose water, or more milk
300g stoneless dates
crushed nuts
sugar and cinnamon
icing sugar

Make the pastry by rubbing the flour and butter together in a big bowl, and then add the milk and rose water to make a soft dough.

Chop up the dates and put them in a pan with six tablespoons of water over a low heat until they go soft and squishy.

Roll a small lump of pastry into a ball, then press your thumb in it to make a little pot. Repeat this until you have several little pots.

Fill some pots with the date mixture and the others with the crushed nuts mixed with sugar and cinnamon. For each pot, press the edges of the pastry together.

Put all the filled pots on a baking tray and cook them for about 25 minutes at 180oC or 350oF but do not let them turn brown. When they are cool, roll them in icing sugar.