Easter Goodies

by Cyn Gagen

aka what you should have seen on In the Kitchen with Cyn

Due to a severe migraine that landed me in the Emergency Room, I was unable to do my In the Kitchen with Cyn show the other night.  I was really disappointed because I had some great goodies to share with you!  Here are some of the recipes I had planned to demo on the show:

Flickr, Aussiegal

Homemade Chocolate Easter Eggs

I love to make these homemade chocolate Easter eggs for my family.  They are quick, easy, and delicious.  I use two kinds of chocolate (semi-sweet and white) for dipping so that I have two different types of eggs.

Ingredients:

1 pkg. (the size that makes 4 servings) of instant chocolate pudding

1/3 c. boiling water

1/3 c. softened margarine

3 c. icing sugar (best if sifted)

6 squares semi sweet chocolate (like the bakers’ kind)

6 squares white chocolate (bakers’ type)

You may also want some sprinkles or icing to decorate the eggs.

Instructions:  Mix together the pudding mix, water, and margarine until smooth.  Stir in the icing sugar, 1 cup at a time until you can form this “dough” into a ball.  Pinch off pieces of the dough and form them into egg shapes.  Put these into the refrigerator until firm.  Partly melt the chocolate squares – I do this in separate bowls over a hot water bath.  Stir frequently.  Once it’s about 2/3 melted, remove it from the heat.  Keep stirring until all the chocolate has melted.  Dip the eggs into the chocolate and if you would like, decorate them with the sprinkles or icing.  If you would like different colours or flavours for your eggs, you can make more than one filling using different pudding flavours.  Then create a small egg from one of the flavours and wrap a second flavour around it before dipping in chocolate.

Empty Tomb Cookies

This is a great cookie to make with children beginning the night before Easter.  It helps to tell the story of Easter as you create the cookies.

Ingredients:

1 c. whole pecans

1 tsp. vinegar

3 egg whites

Optional: 1 tsp. vanilla to represent the sweet smelling spices used to prepare Jesus’ body for burial

pinch salt

1 c. sugar

You’ll also need a ziploc baggie, a wooden spoon or mallett, and some duct or packing tape.

Instructions:  The first thing you need to do is start heating the oven to 300 degrees F.  Put the pecans in the baggie and have the children pound them with the spoon or mallett.  Tell them about how Jesus was arrested and beaten by Roman soldiers.  (You may want to read John 19:1-3.)

Give the children the opportunity to have a sniff of the vinegar and even a tiny taste if they’re willing.  Put the vinegar into your mixing bowl and discuss how, when Jesus was on the cross and he became thirsty, he was cruelly offered vinegar to drink.  (John 19:28-30)

Add the egg whites to the bowl containing the vinegar.  Eggs symbolize life and Jesus gave His life so that we could have eternal life.  (John 10:10-11) Give each child a tiny taste of the salt.  Add a pinch of salt to the bowl.  The salt represents the saltiness of the tears that Jesus’ followers cried when he was being crucified.  They represent our tears too when we sin.  (Luke 23:27)

The story and the mixture are not terribly sweet so far but now we add the sugar to the bowl.  The sugar represents the fact that the sweetest, most wonderful thing in this story is that Jesus died because He loved us so much.  (Psalms 34:8, John 3:16).

Beat the mixture in the bowl for 10-15 minutes on high until it forms stiff peaks.  The mixture is white symbolizing the purity of God and the purity we can have because of Jesus’ sacrifice.  (Isaiah 1:18, John 3:1-3)  Gently fold in the pecans.

Drop this cookie “dough” (because they’re meringue cookies, it’s not a traditional dough) onto cookie sheets that have been lined with waxed paper.  The mounds on the cookie sheets that will become cookies symbolize the tomb where Jesus was buried.  (Matthew 27:57-60)

Place the cookie sheet(s) in the heated oven and turn the oven off.  Give each child a piece of tape to place on the oven door to seal it just as Jesus’ tomb was sealed with a stone.  (Matthew 27:65-66).  Leave the cookies in the oven overnight to set.  If the children protest over having to wait until the next day for their cookies, remind them that Jesus’ followers were also sad when Jesus died and was placed in the tomb.  (John 16:20 and 22)

The next day, let each person have a cookie.  When you bite into them, you will find that the cookies are hollow, just as when Jesus’ followers came to his tomb, they found that it was also empty.  (Matthew 28:1-9)

Resurrection Rolls

This is another treat that’s representative of the Easter story.  They make a lovely sweet treat for Easter and can be used as part of a brunch menu or even as your dessert for Easter dinner.

The basis for these rolls are the packaged tubes of refrigerated crescent roll dough such as what Pillsbury makes.  Separate out the dough but before you roll them out, place a large marshmallow on each one of the rolls.  The marshmallow symbolizes Jesus – being white to signify his pureness.  Sprinkle some cinnamon on each marshmallow to represent the burial spices used.  Now you can roll up the dough as usual to symbolize the shroud that Jesus was wrapped in and the tomb he was buried in.  Bake according to the package directions.  When you eat these sweet treats, you’ll find that just as with the tomb cookies above, these rolls will be hollow inside because “the tomb is now empty”.

Here are some more Easter recipes I shared on my cooking blog last year:

http://islandtearoom.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/italian-easter-egg-bread/

http://islandtearoom.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/hot-cross-buns/

http://islandtearoom.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/kulich-and-pascha/