Easter Cakes, Bakes and Hot Cross Buns – A selection of recipes to grace your Easter Table, from breakfast, through to afternoon and high tea.
Some Fabulous Traditional Recipes for Easter
I find myself rather astonished to realise that Easter is only two weeks away now, it seems to have crept up on me rather suddenly! So, it’s time to think about Easter Cakes, Bakes and Hot Cross Buns.
I love Eastertide, as much as Christmas – it’s lovely to celebrate Spring with longer days and hopefully warmer weather.
I do have some new recipes to share with you all, but for now, I have gathered together some of my most popular Easter recipes to share with you today.
I have made a list of recipes, that include bread, biscuits, cakes, tray bakes, and of course Hot Cross Buns. All of the recipes would be perfect for any Easter celebration, or for the Easter Sunday tea time table.
And, I will be back soon, with some cracking breakfast recipes with a French Bistro theme, that would also be wonderful to serve over the Easter weekend.
I hope you will find plenty of inspiration, and please do let me know if you make any of the recipes I’ve shared today, or any other recipes on Lavender & Lovage. Karen
Easter Cakes, Bakes and Hot Cross Bun Recipes
My recipe for Lemon & Elderflower Cake with Raspberries is a stunner! It’s a really beautiful spring/summer show-stopper gateau-type cake that uses seasonal elderflower cordial and lemon curd.
The base cake mixture is a Victoria Sandwich, a British classic that works well with all of the other British ingredients and preserves.
These pretty little Lemon Curd Fairy Cakes are so easy to make, and even easier to eat! Made with a standard Victoria sponge cake recipe, they are decorated with lemon buttercream and a dollop of delectable lemon curd. The final flourish is a little edible flower, in this case, primroses and primulas.
This spectacular Simnel Cake is so easy to make. Baked in a loaf pan, as opposed to the usual round cake tin, it has a fabulous fresh orange drizzle icing, and is decorated with edible flowers (made from wafers and rice paper) as well as mini chocolate eggs and bay leaves. Make this for Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day) for your mum, or for the Easter Sunday tea time table. It’s a wonderful Spring cake, but it would be enjoyed by friends and family all year round.
This delightful diary-free cake hides a fun secret – cut into its light as a feather crumb, and you will see a myriad of rainbow flecks inside, like confetti, hence its rather jolly name of a Funfetti or a Confetti Cake! Chiffon Cake recipe adapted from Woman and Home. (You MUST use the correct type of “sprinkles”, the wax coated ones, and not the sugar paste ones – I used Rainbow Jimmies by Wilton from Amazon.co.uk)
This No Bake Creme Egg & Malteser Chocolate Tiffin Bundt Cake recipe is easy to make, looks fabulous, tastes divine and even the children can make it with adult supervision. Use any biscuits that suit, I used amaretti biscuits for an almond twist, but digestive biscuits work well too.
Easy No Knead Sourdough Hot Cross Buns – These no-knead sourdough hot cross buns take 24hrs to make, from start to finish, but it’s all passive time. I use a mix of Wholemeal Spelt and White Flour for a lovely nutty taste and texture.
This year I have decided to go a little “off piste” with my buns, in a manner of speaking! I will be using my old family recipe, as it really is a winner, but, I will be baking these buns in a muffin tray this year, (as you can see from my photos) in the manner of a French Brioche. I decided that we are going to go dainty for Easter tea, with smaller buns that are also a pretty shape; I was going to bake them in some traditional brioche moulds, but as they are vintage moulds, they are considerably smaller than the modern-day silicone moulds, and greed overtook “dainty” on that score.
If you have a bread machine, you can start the dough in the machine up to the second proving stage. Add the dried fruit 5 minutes before the end of kneading or when your bread machine beeps.
Pretty little vanilla sponge cakes that have been baked in mini bundt moulds and are drizzled with white chocolate; these mini bundts are then decorated with mini chocolate eggs and seasonal sprinkles or hundreds and thousands. Just perfectly pretty (and delicious) for the Easter Sunday tea time table.
My version of the commercial Jammie Dodger biscuits made by Burton’s Foods, but just a bit “posher”! I have added a generous slug of vanilla extract and used my own home-made raspberry jam in these, as well as cutting them out to look like daisies. Perfect for any tea party or for a special occasion such as Mother’s Day, Easter and Birthday parties. You can use seedless jam if you like, and of course any jam of your choice – I just love raspberry jam in these classic British biscuits.
Retro School Dinners Iced Tray Bake Cake was my favourite “after’s” or pudding as we used to call dessert. Often served with the ubiquitous pink custard, I preferred mine without custard, as it was the buttercream icing I loved, along with the “hundreds and thousands”, known as sprinkles nowadays. This tray bake “slab” cake is easy to make and even easier to eat, and makes a very generous 15 squares of cake, although I remember our school dinner ladies and cooks serving up giant slabs of this cake from huge trays of 24 portions or more.
Delightful little Coconut Macaroons, which remind me of old-fashioned bakeries from my childhood, as well as afternoon tea with granny. These are made with just five ingredients and are gluten free too, making them a very tasty and accessible treat for all. Baked on rice paper, which gives that essential chewy texture, these keep in an airtight tin for up to a week, although we rarely get past storing these for a couple of days!
Today’s recipe for Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread is a revelation! Made with the basic recipe for my CLASSIC SOURDOUGH BREAD MADE EASY, it has a drop of milk added, for a softer crumb, and is baked in a traditional loaf tin. Perfect for Easter tea time sandwiches.
Happy Baking! Karen
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