Easter is on the Way

 This week flew by in a flash with today beginning with a splash, heavy rain has been falling all morning and it's expected to rain throughout the weekend.  

 I'm happy to say I have spent a little time crafting a few things for Easter, these cute little stuffed bunnies I actually had cut the fabric two years ago but falling ill so severely did not leave me the energy to finish. I'm happy to say they are now completed and ready to display.

I have put them in a small wooden basket with an Easter egg dish cloth to line the basket and added those fun pastel eggs you can use chalk on to design.  I left them plain for now.

 Yesterday I made some Easter Bread, it's an old recipe which I have adjusted to living in Florida by using sugar crystals on the top instead of a glaze. I learned the first few years living here glaze and the humidity don't mix well.  For years I left it plain, then one day I came across the sugar crystals.

This is a very similar recipe to my Irish soda bread, I use raisins, currants, candied fruit and for the Easter bread I add nuts.  I can't recall but I vaguely remember the recipe was once for Hot Cross buns which I changed to make small loaves of bread.  My use of added the candied fruit came about when I had left overs from making fruit cakes at Christmas time which was in high demand from several family members and friends now long gone.

Back in the 1980's when I was at my baking best all you could buy was the candied fruit in separate containers, so I would have, lemon, orange, pineapple, citron, then raisins and there was always left overs that would be tossed away.  Then one year when I didn't make as many fruit cakes I had so much left that I just stuff them in the pantry a few months later while I was making Irish soda bread I decided to toss some in and the rest was history, everyone loved my Irish Soda bread so I just kept on making it that way.  Now I can buy a mix or candied fruit in one container that goes from Christmas to Easter.