Easy Easter Cakes: a simple distraction

Here are some easy Easter cake and dessert recipes that will keep everyone happy over the long weekend.

My first Easter recipe suggestion is to just point you in the direction of a rather wonderful ring marble cake (doesn’t have to be a ring). I would heartily recommend Mary Berry’s recipe, which you can easily find online or in her Ultimate Cake Book – definitely a book worth investing in.

This I covered in chocolate (as per her recommendation) and then picked spring flowers, which I arranged to the best of my artistic ability in the centre. If I had more time then I would have crystallised some primroses to put around the ring.

Crystallising primroses is a technique I love to use with Easter cakes – they taste delicious and look beautiful as well. An added benefit is that this is a gorgeous cake decoration that you may not even need to leave your garden for.

All you need to do is:

1. Pick your primroses

2. Whisk an egg white and delicately coat each primrose with the wash (use a paintbrush)

3. Dip each primrose in caster sugar

4. Leave to dry for 1-2 days

Ingredients:

· 300g plain flour

· 120g ground almonds (or roughly 4 tbsp)

· 60g caster sugar

· 300g slightly salted butter

· 1 tbsp orange juice

· Your choice of toppings

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3

2. Lightly grease an 8 inch square tin

3. Combine flour, almonds, sugar and butter (cut into chunks) in a food processor – do not settle for a breadcrumbed consistency as you would with a crumble mix, but instead “deliberately” ignore the mixer for a while and allow the ingredients to fully combine

4. Add the orange juice to the mix and pulse to combine

5. Leave the dough to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes before spreading in the tin – I used a milk bottle to push it out into the corners

6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 35 minutes

7. Once out of the oven, immediately decorate with your toppings. I used zest from two oranges mixed with 2 tsp of sugar, smashed up mini eggs, and smashed up weird shop-bought sugar rose cake thingys.

8. Then leave to cool for at least an hour before slicing up and removing from the tin.