My front yard all in bloom!
Easter Eggs!
I neglected to blog about Easter, other than some cool videos about The Ten Commandments. The daughter took me to task, so here is my Easter blog post!
Do you like the eggs she decorated? I blew them out for our Easter meal, and she decorated them all by herself.
The whole family got together and had a nice mid-afternoon br-lunner. I had it in my head that we'd have brunch, but somebody's odd work schedule prohibited an earlier meal, so there we were. Breakfast foods in the afternoon!
We had scrambled Easter Egg guts, home-baked coffee cake (a specialty of mine), turkey bacon, asparagus, home-baked toasted English muffin bread, fresh strawberries, and mimosas made with freshly squeezed orange juice made from oranges off our little tree and Chuckie and Jerry's hand-me-down Jack LaLanne juicer. YUM!
You will like this recipe for an easy coffee cake:
Quick Coffee Cake (Kuchen) from Joy of Cooking
Preheat oven to 375ºF. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
Sift together:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Beat until creamy in a large bowl with a wooden spoon: (I use a mixer)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
Gradually add and beat until light and fluffy
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
Beat in:
1 large egg
2/3 cup milk (Shoe's note: have it at room temperature so that it doesn't congeal the butter)
Beat in the dry ingredients. Add
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Shoe's note: I add some cinnamon; I've never measured it but it is probably 1-2 teaspoons)
Stir until smooth. Spread the batter in the greased pan.
Cover with Streusel (below). Can also cover with 1 1/2 cups blueberries or cherries tossed with 1/2 cup sugar.
Bake about 35 minutes if covered with streusel, 25-30 minutes if covered with fruit. Cool on a rack.
Streusel:
(Shoe's note: This is doubled from the original recipe--always double cinnamon and sugar!)
Combine 2/3 cup sugar, 4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour, 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter. Blend these ingredients until crumbly. Add 1 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle the over the dough and bake as directed.
Don't wait until next Easter to bake it!
