Easter Celebrations

This year our family were away for Easter, so less need for all the chocolate, however, there were plenty of visitors coming over and in need of refreshment. I try to minimise my baking by making a cake that will stay fresh and delicious for several days. Often I will bake a fruit cake but this year I had a lot of carrots in the fridge and thought a carrot cake would be good choice.



In keeping with the Easter spirit I made the cake in the style of a Simnel cake. Simnel cake, traditionally served at Easter is a fruitcake that is decorated with a layer of marzipan and  eleven balls of marzipan representing the twelve apostles minus Judas.

Small M&M Speckled Eggs were used as a substitute for the marzipan balls, 

Cream cheese frosting for the marzipan icing so Easter was not totally free of chocolate. The eggs are also small so obviously more than eleven.

I used this recipe for the cake but instead of making one large cake I made twelve cupcakes and two smaller cakes.





There were homemade crumpets

Mostly served whole 

These are with some delicious cultured fennel butter from Lardass Butter, my new addiction.

The usual Easter foods made an appearance - flash fried calamari with salt and pepper spice and of course fish on Good Friday.

Roast lamb with herb and bacon stuffing.