Jennifer Sheahan: How to make easy edible Easter gifts and decorations
Jennifer Sheahan, former Home of the Year winner, left, with some of her favourite Easter treats.
I love, love, love Easter, and if you haven’t yet heard my arguments for why I feel it is the best holiday (yes, better than Christmas) then hear me now — you don’t have to buy presents, there’s no obligation to spend all day visiting people, you get to eat your body weight in chocolate, you can forget about slaving over a turkey all day, and nobody expects you to haul decorations down from the attic (though I do personally love Easter decorations — perhaps more so because there is no pressure to put them up). Plus there’s a grand auld stretch in the evenings, and with it come daffodils and furze springing up all over the landscape with bright yellow cheeriness. It’s ideal.
I wrote an ode to Easter this time last year, where I gave tips and recipes for making and decorating Easter eggs of all types — chocolate eggs, cookie eggs, and even Rice Krispie eggs.
I love to use these eggs as decorations themselves, dotting them around the house in jars or pretty wrapping, to be nibbled throughout the long weekend and requiring no storage in between Easters. This year, here are three more ideas for baked treats that are decorative and easy to make in time for Easter.
Ok, so I haven’t veered too far off the egg-themed track here, but eggs are central to Easter so they deserve attention — hereby given in the form of edible nests. These are easy to make, and you can make any size you like. All you need to make edible nests is something to form the nest around. A muffin or cupcake tray is ideal here; all you need to do is make your favourite biscuit or cookie recipe, turn the tray upside down, and shape the dough around the bottom of each cup.
Bake as normal and allow to cool before removing, and voila — a cookie nest which you can fill with colourful mini-eggs! My favourite cookie recipe for this is the chocolate sugar cookie recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction (where most of my favourite baking recipes come from; I love you Sally!).
Mix together 190g flour, 60g cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt. In a separate bowl, beat 170g room temperature unsalted butter with 200g sugar until smooth and creamy, then add in 1 egg and 1 tsp vanilla extract.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, then mix together. Halve the dough and roll out each half to about half a centimetre thickness.
Layer between greaseproof or parchment paper and chill for at least one hour before cutting and shaping over the muffin tin bases. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes.
If baking is not your thing, you can also make a chocolate rice krispie or cornflake mixture — simply mix 100g melted milk chocolate with 40g rice krispies or cornflakes, shape around the bottoms of the muffin tray, and allow to cool in the fridge before removing. Cover the bottom of the tray with an oil or spray before shaping to prevent sticking.
I’m all about chocolate at Easter but I know there are those among you who aren’t so here is a super cute non-chocolate bunny treat. This recipe (from itsalwaysautumn.com) calls for puff pastry and while I love baking, I do not mess around with pastry — it’s too much hassle for too little benefit, so I buy ready-made and I have no guilt about doing so. For these bunny twists, you will need frozen puff pastry, which typically comes in two rectangular sheets.
Let it defrost first in the fridge so that it’s no longer frozen but still cold. Lay both sheets of pastry out flat and melt 2 tbsp of butter (salted) in the microwave in 10-second bursts.
Brush the melted butter over the pastry sheets, leaving about two centimetres on the top and bottom edges clear on each sheet. Mix 2 tbsp sugar with 1 tbsp cinnamon and sprinkle over the buttered section on one of the sheets.
Brush water along the bare top and bottom edges and lay the second sheet of pastry on top, buttered side down. Use a fork to crimp the top and bottom edges of the two pastry sheets together.
With a sharp knife or a pizza cutter, cut the pastry from top to bottom into approximately 16 strips. Take each strip, fold it in half along the flat side so the two crimped ends come together, then twist it twice in the middle. There should be a circle at one end (the bottom of the bunny), two twists in the middle (its body), and two crimped ends slightly separated on top (ears) so that the overall shape resembles a bunny from behind.
Lay the bunny twists on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 minutes at 180 Celsius.
While cooling, add a mini marshmallow or a white chocolate button to the bunny’s “bottom” to make a bunny tail.
You could also use a dollop of icing using a star piping tip if you have the inclination to make some. For my favourite is cream cheese icing — mix together 120g icing sugar, 75g cream cheese, 40g butter, and ½ tsp vanilla extract until smooth.
Filled cones work for every holiday and event — and they’re an easy way to use up holiday-themed sweets and treats. You will need around 10 ice cream cones — any kind will do.
Melt around 100g of chocolate (any kind) in a bowl in short 10-second bursts in the microwave, stirring gently between bursts, or over a saucepan of hot water (a.k.a a double boiler). Dip the top edges of the cone in the chocolate and scatter sprinkles over the melted chocolate if you have them. Next, make a filling.
I love a simple no-bake strawberry cheesecake.
Chop around 150g strawberries into small chunks, then whip 200g double cream until stiff. Blend 500g cream cheese, 85g icing sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and 2 tsp lemon juice. Fold this mixture gently into the whipped cream, then stir in the chopped strawberries.
Pipe the filling into the cones and top with any sweets and treats you like. Crushed-up mini-eggs, jellies, biscuits, and marshmallows work great here, or anything else you have lying around.
Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge before enjoying, either laid out on parchment paper or I like to sit them in champagne flutes for a flourish!
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