Preparing for Easter

Easter preparations have been going full bore these days. Today was our day for doing the eggs and the bread for our basket.

I started off doing plain eggs for the girls to colour later, then did kraszanki. I completely forgot to take pictures of them, though. We did them the same as usual, except that I took half a dozen out earlier, so they're slightly lighter coloured than the rest.

Next up were the dragon's eggs, with a difference. Since we've cut soy out of our diets, the eggs were done in just black tea, spices and sugar. I did add a pinch of saffron for a bit of extra colour, but I don't know that it made any difference. As you can see here, there's quite a difference in appearance!










A few of them didn't look as nice, so I peeled them for snacking. The effect is a lot more subtle. They taste just as good, though. :-D












The next project was the bread. It was our basic bread recipe using eggs and milk for the liquid, local honey for the sweetener, and butter for the fat.


While the dough was rising, the girls took over the kitchen and coloured the plain eggs I'd readied for them earlier. Eldest didn't do very many, but the ones she did do, she got experimental with, as you can see here.















Youngest got creative with some of hers, too.





















She was having fun with these bi-coloured eggs.


















I like how it turned out.

With others, they did things like crack the shells a bit before dying them, so that they'll have a nice effect after peeling.

We didn't do any wax resist eggs this year. I know I unpacked my kistka and wax, but I'm not sure where I put them. I figured we had enough to fuss with to skip them for this year. ;-)





When the bread was ready for shaping, I used 3/4's of the 2 loaf recipe to make the wreath. After making a braid and shaping it into a wreath, I cut a bit more from the remaining 1/4 of the dough for the bow. I wanted the wreath to stay large and open, so I put an overturned bowl in the middle, forcing the dough to rise more outwards than inwards. If I'd had an oven proof bowl in the size I wanted, I would've left it there for baking, but no such luck. Instead, with the help of Youngest, we carefully removed the bowl when it was done rising, then she applied an egg wash to the surface for me.


It's not the smoothest or prettiest of wreaths, but it's the size and shape I was after.


















The remaining dough was cut and shaped into 8 small balls and put into a little cast iron frying pan I've got. I'd used it earlier to melt the butter for the dough, and I didn't want to waste the dregs left behind. ;-) That and I really like baking in cast iron.

I think they look adorable. :-D


It's now well past midnight. The eggs are in the fridge, and the bread is cool enough to wrap up so they don't try out.

Then it's time for bed!!