Easter baking

I revisited some old favourites this week but put an Easter spin on them all.

Easter biscuits


The CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) is getting very bolshie of late in her demands and she made it quite clear that she was expecting me to arrive on Sunday with some Easter biscuits. Seeing as there is only one weekend a year you can make these (and be seasonal) I couldn’t really refuse.


Easter biscuits are like little girls i.e. made of sugar and spice and all things nice! The warm spicy smells that waft from the oven as they bake are the food equivalent for me of sailors being lured to the rocks by Sirens, except in my example I eat a biscuit rather than die, which seems the better deal all things considered.


The recipe for Easter biscuits can be found here on my site.


Vanilla biscuits


Next on the list are my favourite vanilla biscuits. I wanted to make these so I could try out my new biscuit cutter.


You will notice that the cutter has a companion piece which you push into the biscuit for detail. This also provides a template for icing the biscuit. I bought my cutter from Lakeland Limited – whatever did we do before this marvellous company existed? I’ve tried to find a link to the item but it’s not on their site anymore. The stencil part, gives very crisp detailing:


These Easter bunnies look so chirpy it was almost a shame to eat them! (NB. I overcame this feeling in about – ooh, three seconds, maybe less)


The recipe for Vanilla biscuits can be found here on my site.

Genoese sponge


My final item involves Genoese sponge. It wouldn’t be a holiday weekend without some sort of sponge creeping onto the tea table!

Normally I make large cakes out of Genoese so thought it would be fun to go to the opposite end of the spectrum. These tiny little sponges are the cake equivalent of a shot or an amuse bouche. The larger sponge in the background is the size of a cupcake, so you can see just how tiny the sponges in front are:


You can fill the cake with cream or buttercream but I went for my favourite ‘dipping sauce’ filling (recipe set out below).


The Genoese sponge recipe can be found here on my site.

Dipping sauce

Dipping sauce has only three ingredients and is the work of minutes to make but is utterly heavenly:

Ingredients
250g Mascarpone cheese
500ml Good quality Ready-made custard
Vanilla

How to make:
- Whisk ingredients together until blended, thick and creamy.
- Refrigerate until needed.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.