Easter

Since Easter's round the corner, the girls and I made some Easter eggs. It was our second attempt (last year's project was a failure, we used paint instead of food colourings). As you can see from the picture, they didn't turn out nice this time too. I tried both the methods - blow eggs and hard boiled eggs (they cracked after boiling). Then Lavigne dropped some on the table and you know what happened to them. Our tie-dyed eggs didn't turn out the way they should also. Sigh! I have to confess that I went into this project half-heartedly. I could have stuck stickers round the eggs and remove them after the colouring process to make patterns. Furthermore, to get really nice colours, I should use white eggs. Next year maybe.

Yesterday, we made some hotcross buns, our version. We don't like raisins so I substituted them with choc chips. Not keen on the spice too so I left it out. I used the basic butter bread recipe instead of the usual hotcross bun ones. The girls kneaded the dough and Louisa announced later that it was too tiring. I made 2 batches of dough. One for the girls and one for myself. Once again, I made charsiew and choc chip buns (I forgot to take any pic and they are in the tummies already). One thing I realised (I think) why my previous doughs took so long to rise was because the yeast I bought were instant which means it doesn't need water to activate it (unlike what the recipe called for - they use normal yeast I think). So I tried both ways. For the girls' dough, I just dumped the yeast straight into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients and poured in the required amount of water needed to activate the yeast. The texture and consistency turned out to be very good and it rose to the right size after the stipulated time while mine took ages (it did rise after I popped it into the oven set at a very low temp). My shaping skill is still not good though. Other than that, our baking session was a success!