Two more weeks until Easter!

My boys started to get in the habit of counting the days & months from one fest to another, e.q. How many days til Christmas, til Easter, til my Birthday, .....?

That is what really matters it seems. And even tough I noticed that in Australia Easter is not such a big deal, in Europe we do love to celebrate Easter in a big way.

But growing up with Easter in Spring, celebrating Easter in Australia at the beginning of Autumn still feels very strange to me.

I always associated Easter with spring flowers, pastel colors, a slow awakening of nature, the sun is slowly getting stronger and starting to warm up the earth.

Here in Australia the Easter bunny makes his way around pumpkin wines, golden, red & orange leaves, ripened apples & harvest time.

 

 

Even though, I love the Australian Autumn, I still struggle with this combination and my system feels confused.

But my boys don't really seem to care about these things as there system hasnt had a chance to get used to neither one of the seasons festivals, routines & changes.

Nonetheless, as I mentioned in my blogs around Christmas time, I still love to keep some of my German traditions around festive seasons alive and integrate them into our Australian life-style:

• In Germany we do have big Easter Hunts, where the children; traditionally on Easter Sunday; looking for hidden Easter eggs, chocolates & other Easter treasures hidden by the Easter bunny around the house & garden.

• Coloring Easter Eggs is another good one that I still have very fond memories of. Sitting in my grandmas old kitchen on Good Fridays and dying loads of boiled eggs.

• And of course, the Easter baking!

 

Oh, we Germans love a good cake(or cakes?)!

Therefore, I would love to share today with you my recipe for Braided Easter Bread:

Ingredients:

• 500 g Spelt Flour ( I always prefer spelt flour to wheat? as it is easier on the stomach, more substantial and contains more protein & minerals than wheat flour )

• 1 Package of dried yeast
• 50 g raw sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 250 ml of cream ?slightly warm
• 1 Tsp milk
• 1 egg yolk
• 150 g raisins (optional)

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 175 Degrees.
• Put flour into a bowl.
• Add dry yeast, sugar, vanilla essence, salt, eggs, egg white & slightly warm cream.

• Knead ingredients into a dough.
• Cover the dough with a wet kitchen towel and let it sit for app. 1 hour or until the dough has doubled its size.

• Knead the dough again and if desired work the raisins into the dough.
• Divide the dough into 3 parts of equal size and make 3 long rolls out of them.
• Braid the Rolls into a Plait.
• Put plait onto a greased (or lined with baking paper) baking tray.
• Whisk the milk & egg yolk and spread the mix onto the plait.
• Put plait aside for another 30 min to raise.
• Bake for 35 min in the preheated oven.
• Plait will covet the whole baking tray.
• Once it turned golden brown & shiny, you can take it out.
• Cover it up and let it cool down.
• It taste absolutely delicious for breakfast or afternoon tea with butter, jam & honey.

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Tip: You can freeze this Braided Easter Bread if you like. You can prepare it a few days prior to Easter, freeze it and take it out on Easter Sunday. Once defrosted, it will taste like freshly baked.