Easter recipe ideas

Create your own springtime delicacies with these traditional and new Easter recipes.

Don’t rely on Easter eggs to fill you up -- try these recipes for Easter treats. Children will love helping you to make these too -- what a great Bank Holiday family activity!

• bunny cookies
• hot cross buns
• chocolate nests with tiny eggs
• Italian Easter bread
• simnel cake
• Easter biscuits
• pashka

Bunny cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsps baking soda
• 1-½  tsps ground ginger
• ½  tsp ground cinnamon
• ½  tsp ground cloves
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½  cup solid vegetable shortening
• ½  cup sugar
• 1 egg
• ½  cup molasses
• 1-½  teaspoons cider vinegar

Method

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt onto waxed paper.
2. Beat together shortening, sugar and egg in large bowl with electric mixer until fluffy, for about three minutes. Beat in the molasses and cider vinegar. Stir in flour mixture until blended and smooth. Gather dough into ball; wrap and chill for several hours.
3. Preheat oven to 375°. Divide dough in half. Roll out half of the dough onto lightly floured surface to a ½ cm thickness. Keep the rest of the dough refrigerated while working with first half.
4. To use a bunny pattern, draw a pattern onto a piece of cardboard. Make sure ears are attached to the head. Cut out pattern. Place pattern on dough and trace with a toothpick. Cut out cookies. Place 2cms apart on lightly greased baking sheets. Re-roll scraps, using up all the dough. Repeat with remaining dough.
5. Bake in preheated 375° oven for five to seven minutes or until firm. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
6. Decorate cookies as desired. Let cookies stand until icing is firm. Store in airtight container between sheets of waxed paper for up to a fortnight.