I look forward to Easter weekend every year as a time to share with my family. Here’s a peek into some of my Easter traditions:
I spent my Saturday hopping around my kitchen in preparation for Easter. Every year I bake four different recipes for our family Easter supper feast, including Paska bread (top left), Easter Savory Pie (bottom right), Brown Sugar Pound Cakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting (top right), and Chocolate Chip Cookies (bottom left). The special bread recipe was passed down to me from my mother-in-law, Suzanne, who got it from Mrs. Resavi, the mother of her uncle’s wife. This delicious bread is of Eastern European origin and is traditionally eaten during Easter (you can read more about it here if you’re interested). My mother-in-law’s side of the family has baked this bread for Easter supper for many generations now and I enjoy continuing the tradition. Below is the recipe we use in our family:
The other items I bake for Easter are newer traditions we started to incorporate in the years since I married into the family. I love to bake and the only time I really get to do so is for family gatherings and special occasion so I usually jump at the chance to contribute home-baked goods to the festivities. The Easter Savory Pie recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. It is a delicious Italian inspired dish featuring a tasty parmesan crust with a ricotta, spinach, and prosciutto filling. I make this pie every year at the special request of my husband’s Grandpa who is of Italian descent and grew up eating something very similar on Easter Sunday with his family. I also bring dessert and for the past couple of years my family has asked for the special Brown Sugar Pound Cake Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting I made for St. Patrick’s Day one year for fun. This recipe is from the Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook. It is simple to prepare and such a crowd pleaser with the fun twist in the frosting. I usually bring a bunch of my favorite chocolate chip cookies to family events and I like to make two batches for Easter and wrap up cookies into little goodie bags for my family to take home with them. I have a video sharing this recipe which you can watch target=”_blank”>here if you’re interested.
One of the other traditions I enjoy every Easter is to prepare baskets filled with trinkets, tokens, and sweet treats for my little family (my husband Don and my dog Winnie) as well as my three nieces and nephew. I always find great Easter basket supplies at Target for the girls. Me and my Mom sent each of my brother’s girls (ages 8 and 10) their own care package filled with goodies. I put together a baby-friendly basket for my sister-in-law’s little one (11 months). My nephew who is all grown up and in the navy got a bit of candy and a bit of cash. I always put together a basket for my pup, Winnie. She has many toys already, but I do pare down her collection on a regular basis and donate ones she no longer cares for to animal shelters. This year I placed a few treats in the folds of a scrunched up towel that I used as filler for her basket and we had fun watching her try to fit her whole self into the basket to retrieve the cookies. My husband and I also exchange baskets, which we have done for the entirety of our marriage (9 years this fall!). I realize some people may think it’s silly for adults to exchange Easter baskets, but we enjoy taking the opportunity to put together little gifts of affection for each other. Don went a little overboard with my basket this year. He said he couldn’t help himself and got carried away!
If you’d like to see what we put in each other’s baskets as well as more about my Easter baking, check out my coordinating vlog-style video below:
As I mention in the video, I decided it would be fun to pass on the goodies that the nice people at kikki. K so generously sent me as a thank you for featuring their products in a post earlier last month. The kikki. K Goodies Giveaway will run until Wednesday, April 30, 2014 at 6 PM CT. The giveaway is open internationally. All entrants under the age of 18 must have parental permission to enter. One person will win the kikki. K journal, pencil pouch, open set, and stickers pictured below:
You can enter by following the directions in the Rafflecopter widget posted below (check out this blog post for more information on entering Rafflecopter giveaways). I’ll announce the winner on THIS blog post and contact them directly through email, as always. Good luck!
Sometimes Rafflecopter experiences technical difficulties. If you can’t enter for some reason, try again later and it will probably work.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into my Easter weekend including some of my family’s holiday traditions. I’d love to know what some of your Easter traditions are if you are to share. 🙂
* Post contains referral links. This is not a sponsored post. Prize items were sent to me as a gift from kikki. K. All opinions are genuinely my own. *
