Eggless Dark Chocolate Hot Cross Buns/Easter Special Chocolate Hot Cross Buns

Today is Easter here, and i cant imagine Easter without hot cross buns. Though i have tried couple of Hot cross buns, i was looking for a chance to bake some chocolate loaded hot cross buns. Chocolate is our family favourite, obviously i couldnt stop myself to bake some chocolate loaded hot cross buns.Wiki says that  "A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, and traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the British Isles, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and some parts of the Americas". The cake marks the end of Lent and different parts of the hot cross bun have a certain meaning, including the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, and the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him at his burial. They are now available all year round in some places.

Pinca - Croatian Easter Sweet Bread

Pinca/Pinza, this sweet bread is baked in Croatia especially during Easter holidays. Traditionally baked with loads of eggs, this bread will be super rich, soft and beautifully flavoured bread, obviously which will definitely tickle your tastebuds. Though earlier lard is used in this bread, nowadays Pinca is made with a butter and flavored with either with citrus zest or with orange zest, along with candied or dried fruits with some rum or rose water. Obviously this bread is a must for Easter table as Pinca remained as centrepiece of most of the Croatian Easter breakfast table. Pinca is often taken to Easter mass for blessings which is later given as a symbol of good wishes.

Vegan Lagana Bread / Greek Shrove Monday Bread

Shrove Monday or Clean Monday (Kathari Deftera) is a Greek public Holiday, usually celebrated by going out for a picnic and also by the custom of kite flying. As with most holidays in Greece, this one also revolves around food. As it is the first day of the Orthodox Lent, no meat, fish  or dairy products are consumed. This means that it’s the day of  the year to make all these traditional Greek recipes, like taramasalata, dolmades, semolina halva and of course the one thing that holds everything together is the traditional Lagana bread. Lagana bread is a Greek flat bread which is quite similar to Focaccia and this bread is traditionally baked only on Shrove Monday, the first day of Great lent before Easter. Since the fasting calls for no dairy products, this bread is completely vegan. An authentic touch is given to this bread by pressing the dough with fingertips all along the surface of the Lagana, with sesame seeds which is most common topping of this bread.

Fonott Kalács/Hungarian Egg Twist Bread/Hungarian Easter Sweet Bread

Easter is celebrated all around the world on April 16 of this year. Easter menu have loaded of fantastic breads especially in most of the European countries, though its a religious festival, many cuisines have their own Easter breads. Easter, as many festival holidays in Hungary is very much associated with food and freshly baked breads.Easter breads is definitely one of the delicacies on this holiday menu. The traditional Hungarian Easter bread is Egg Twist aka Fonot Kalács which is a yeasted sweet bread made either with raisins, chocolate chips or else without these two ingredients. Usually baked with three braids, this sweet bread is very spongy and delicious as much as like French Brioche. Almost like Challah bread, this bread have their important place in Easter lunch or dinner table as an accompaniment to serve along with the main dish.

           

Easter Special Bunny Buns

You might have noticed that i have been posting Easter special recipes for this week's blogging marathon which are definitely Kid's friendly dishes coz of the theme. Yes my theme for this week's blogging marathon is Kid's delight - Easter foods. After two incredible baked goodies, i couldnt stop myself to bake an another interesting, damn cute and dangerously addictive Easter special bunny buns. This buns calls for an eggless bread dough, which starts with a sponge, This bunny buns are prepared with sponge and dough method of kneading. Sponge is a yeast starter which is prepared easily with flour, yeast and water. Once the pre-fermented dough gets ready, you can prepare your dough with usual ingredients. This sponge method is used for three different reason, one is for their texture, taste and chemistry.

Easter Bunny Chocolate Sugar Cookies

After some delicious orange flavoured chocolate loaded hot cross buns, i couldnt stop myself to post this dangerously addictive sugar cookies. Once again its a chocolate based baked goodies, very simple to make these sugar cookies suits absolutely prefect to pack in a kid's snack box. During my recent visit to a super market i got a packet Easter special cookies moulds. Back home i tried this bunny shaped moulds for baking this dangerously addictive cookies. You just cant stop yourself munching this incredible chocolate sugar cookies. Yes they are simply awesome and easy to bake. A chocolate sugar cookie dough is quite enough to make this cute looking bunnies.

Orange & Chocolate Chips Hot Cross Buns

A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, but many different versions do exists. My today's post is one among those variations. Its completely a kid's friendly baked goodies which i simply baked with orange zest, orange juice and chocolate chips. If you love citrus flavored baked goodies, am sure you will definitely fell in love with this incredible buns.  I piped the top of these hot cross buns with two strips using both flour paste and icing sugar glaze however you can definitely skip the flour paste or else the icing sugar glaze or vice versa. After baking, i simply brushed these buns with a honey glaze to give the sweetness and a super shine.

Bugnes Lyonnaises - Angel Wings

After Aligot, the popular French regional style of cheese loaded mashed potatoes, am taking you all to enjoy virtually an another popular fried pastry dough called Bugnes which is well known as Angel wings. This bugnes are a traditional sweet pastry made out of the dough that been shaped into twisted ribbons, which is deep fried later and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Though this Bugnes is traditionally present in many European cuisine with many different names, it have been incorporated into other regional cuisine by the immigrants. This pastries are eaten during the period before Lent, a religious observance begins on Ash wednesday and covers a period of six weeks before Easter Sunday. Not to forget that this Bugnes are eaten during carnival as well.

Primorski Uskrsne Bebe - Croatian Easter Bread Dolls/Croatian Easter Babies

Easter is celebrated around the World during the month of March. Many beautiful Easter special breads are baked around the world and my today's Easter bread is from Croatia. Croatian Easter bread dolls or primorski uskrsne bebe which means literally "Easter babies from Primorje" are traditionally made in Primorje and Istria on the Adriatic Coast.They are prepared with a simple sweet yeast dough braided around a colored hard-cooked egg, which gives a cute appearance as much as like  a swaddled baby.Traditionally, the eggs are dyed red, but however now many vibrant coloured dyed eggs are used for making these cute bread babies.

Eggless Hot Cross Buns with Cranberries/Easter Special Hot Cross Buns

Wiki says that A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins, marked with a cross on the top, and traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the British Isles, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and India. The buns mark the end of Lent and different parts of the hot cross bun have a certain meaning, including the cross representing the crucifixion of Jesus, and the spices inside signifying the spices used to embalm him at his burial.They are now available all year round in some places.Hot cross buns may go on sale in Australia and New Zealand as early as New Year's Day or after Christmas. I have been looking for a chance to bake some Hot cross buns since a long. Finally i did this ultimate spiced, cranberries loaded buns, these buns are completely egg free but i dont want to skip the butter.

Easter Brioche Nest/Brioches Nids de Pâques

                                               Happy Easter wishes to you all..

Easter is around the corner and here all the shops are loaded with Easter special chocolates. Kids just love Easter especially for a long weekend as this Christian festival falls always during weekends and one more reason is chocolates (shaped like eggs).You can see these sorts of shaped chocolates only during Easter hence kids will wait eagerly for this festival. After this Easter Bunnies and this Easter Special lamb Brioche, this time Defi Boulange, a fabulous bread baking event by Nadia and Manue challenged the member of this group with this Brioche nest especially for this Easter celebration.This Easter Brioche nest is quite easy to make, even the shaping of this edible nest is really a very easiest one. Apart from colouring the raw eggs, this brioche goes for easy ingredients we usually go for making brioche dough.Sending to Srivalli's Anniversary Mela.

Agneau de Pâques Brioché/Easter Special Lamb Brioche/Easter Lamb Brioche

Bread baking at home is one of my stress burster, i love to experiment with my bread dough but still i have to succeed couple of method of making bread at home like sourdough. However i love baking bread at home with my usual way of making bread dough. Till now i feel very comfort with brioche dough and i love to bake bread with this rich dough. Since few months for some reason i couldnt able to participate Defi Boulange, a fabulous bread baking event by Nadia and Manue.Eventhough this challenge was for the month of April,i dont want to miss their incredible challenge, actually the idea of making brioche lamb pulled me. Yes,i prepared this lamb brioche twice coz my first trial turned almost like a turtle lamb which was quite funny to see but tastewise nothing to say they came out just awesome.

Easter Bunnies/Lapins de Pâques

Easter is around the corner and everyone here are getting ready for the easter celebrations. Its a long weekend for us and am sure its going be bit busy for me as always,if kids are at home.As most of my followers know,i love to be a part of baking events, so that i can learn more about the baking especially when its comes with breads with yeasts. Thank god till now yeast beast will always behave kind with me, coming to this Easter bunnies bread,our this month's Defi Boulange, a fabulous bread baking event by Nadia and Manue challenged us with damn cute and attractive Easter special bunny shaped breads.

I baked some bunnies during last weekend, these bunnies turned out extremely spongy,soft and mildly flavorful coz of the addition of vanilla extract. It was a big hit among my kids,they enjoyed thoroughly with their favourite chocolate drink and i enjoyed with my usual masala chai. An excellent snack,quite filling and the bread dough was super soft as like brioche with mild sweet. Thanks to both Nadia and Manue for pulling me to make this adorable bunnies at home.

4cups Bread flour or all purpose flour
1tbsp Active dry yeast
1/2cup Milk (luke warm)
1/4cup Sugar +1tsp Sugar
1tsp Vanilla extract
1tsp Salt
1no Egg
100grms Butter
1no Egg yolk+1tsp Milk (for brushing)
Chocolate chips (as per need)

Mix the yeast,a teaspoon of sugar and salt to the luke warm milk, keep aside until the yeast turns foamy.

Meanwhile take the flour,egg,sugar in a large bowl, add gradually the foamy yeast and turn everything as a soft dough, now add the butter and knead everything for 10minutes.

Arrange the dough in a bowl covered with a towel,keep aside for atleast for 2hours until they double.

Knead the dough well and divide it as 6 large balls.

Divide each balls as small ball,large ball and a medium ball.

Roll the large ball as a rope, while the medium ball as oval shaped ball and small ball as round ball.

Roll the long rope like dough as shown in the picture, cut the oval shape ball in the middle to half of the ball and separate it to make bunny's ears.

Keep the small ball as shown in picture to make the bunny's tail.Arrange the rolled bunnies over a baking tray.

Keep the baking tray in a warm place for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350F for 5minutes.

Mix the egg yolk with milk for brushing together.

Place a chocolate chip on the head of the bunny to make an eye.

Now brush the unbaked bunnies generously.

Bake them for 20-25minutes until the crust turns golden brown.

Cool it completely on a wire rack and enjoy.