Easter is fast approaching and for Christians worldwide, it marks the first celebration of spring. Everything about Easter celebrations is based around new birth and new hope for our lives, physical and spiritual.
Coloured eggs, baby chicks, lambs, and bunnies, Easter egg hunts and feasting are all a part of today’s Easter, even though most of that is a carry over from pre-Christian pagan celebrations.
Baking and enjoying the smells and tastes of fresh spicy breads, hot cross buns, or cinnamon rolls have become a wonderful part of most Canadian Easter mornings that it would be hard to imagine an Easter without these treats. Today I have a muffin recipe that the kids will love for breakfast because they have an egg cooked in the shell on top of the muffin. Dye the raw eggs with food colouring prior to baking. The second recipe is for a bread machine staple: hot cross buns. Enjoy.
Nestled Egg Muffins
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp. baking powder
1-1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups milk
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup vegetable oil
18 whole uncooked eggs, rinsed
In a large bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder and salt; set aside.
Combine eggs, milk, raisins and oil; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill 18 greased or paper-lined muffin cups half full.
Place one whole egg (with shell) on top of each muffin. Bake at 400 F for 18-20 minutes. Cut an egg open to test for desired doneness. Serve warm.
Note: raw eggs can be coloured ahead of time using food colouring.
Julia’s Hot Cross Buns
3/8 cup milk
3/8 cup water
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup white sugar
4 tbsp. butter or margarine
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. orange zest
3 cups bread flour
1-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
3/4 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp. water
Place milk, water, egg, salt, white sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange zest, bread flour, yeast and raisins in the pan of the bread machine. Select Dough setting, and start.
When cycle is complete, form into 15 rolls. Place into a greased 13 X 9 -inch pan. Let rise 1 hour. Bake at 375 F 20 to 25 minutes. Cool.
Make icing with icing sugar and 1 tbsp. water; drizzle over buns in shape of cross.
Cathi Litzenberger is The Morning Star’s food columnist.
