Favorites-An outlet for all things related to food: Happy Easter!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Happy Easter!

I thought I'd do a little post dedicated to Easter, and with Easter also Spring and fresh colors arrive.

Ever since I was a little child we would decorate Easter eggs in many ways. We didn't have any fancy craft stores around, so our parents, grandparents would make the eggs for us to decorate by making little opening on the each side of the real egg and then they would blow out the egg white and yolk. Let me tell you, I made few Easter eggs using this technique only a few days ago....what a workout for your lungs and actually abs too!

My favorite Easter Eggs are called Pysanky -The term comes from the word pysaty, meaning to write, and this describes how the egg is decorated. Intricate designs are drawn in wax on the eggs, a process closely related to batik. The eggs are then dyed many colors. Ukrainian artisans are famous for their pysanky.

I decided to use the pysanky designs as cookie designs. It was a challenging task, first I found several pictures of pysanky eggs online and then I started designing the cookie designs. I made several drawings and here are the Pysanky Cookies that I have created, I was pleased how they turned out, colors are true pysanky as are the designs.

I love Spring flowers so I thought I would make a cookie inspired by Lily of the valley. They are my favorites, there is just something about those tiny bell shape flowers that really captivates me.

Last year I created a cookie template and made a cookie:
"Lily of the valley in the vase."

These cookies are very much traditional Easter cookies in parts of Europe, they are called Honey cookies, similar to gingerbread cookies. These are from 2009. I'm still learning how to pipe delicate designs like these.

Cute idea came to me after seeing a drawing of a Daffodils.
Here is what I came up with.

Daffodils

so delicate and surrounded by a flowered dress
you never make a cookie mess
spring has arrived
another winter we survived
cookies right off the hot press

Creative works of Iris can be also viewed on her flickr page eyewrisz

Parrot Tulip cookies. I wanted to create the marble effect, I used 3 colors: white, soft pink, slightly darker pink.

I felt little crafty when I made these cupcake toppers for Easter. Foam bunnies, eggs and carrots I bought at a craft store.

Who says that cutout cookies have to be sugar, gingerbread or chocolate only?
I found a delicious recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Cookies that fit the " healthier" profile in my book called Whole Grain Baking. I will be posting this recipe soon, stay tuned.

I love pastel colors on walls, fabrics, and also on cookies. Here are few soft pastel inspired Easter cookies I made.

I wanted to make a bouquets of tulips and lily of the valley flowers, and I found the cutter just for the job among the cutters from the Wilton's Flower Making Set..