Plans for Easter

Thoughts on how to decorate the table, what to cook, organising the egg hunt and other fun (largely chocolate-y) things

Somehow Easter has sprung up on us early this year: it feels like yesterday that we were talking about Christmas, yet here we are with less than two weeks to go. What are your plans? This is what I’m thinking.

FOR THE TABLE

A few simple, seasonal and practical ideas for dressing up your Easter table.

1. Lots of daffodils. To my mind, nothing says Spring, Easter and ‘happy’ quite like daffodils. They’re the world’s most cheerful flower and also, at £1 or £2 a bunch from most supermarkets, not crazily expensive either (hallelujah!). So you can really go for lots. I would say that, wouldn’t I? Lots, lots, lots. I like big bunches down the middle of the table, in higgledy piggledy mismatching vessels: a mix of old jam jars, jugs, glass vases, bud vases and whatever else you have to hand that will hold water and you think looks good. Daffodils are a characterful flower, so I can’t help but feel that they feel most at home with a cosy, these-are-ones-I-cut-from-the-garden style of presentation. The only downside when buying green daffodil stems from the supermarket is that you can never quite be sure when they’ll open up; however you can nudge things along a little, if needed: trim the bottom of the stems off (2-3cm will do), set the flowers in lukewarm water, and once they look like they might be contemplating opening up but haven’t yet fully committed to doing so, then very gently prise open the individual petals. It works a treat.

2. Think pretty pastels. I don’t really know why, but somehow pastel colours feel innately Easter-y. I love these frilly pink and yellow plates from TAVOLA either paired with a gingham tablecloth or on a backdrop of simple, crisp white linen (always a chic choice). But there’s no need to dash out and buy new plates, you can just as well add accents of colour to the table with your linens: a tablecloth (like this duck egg blue one) or a table runner (either fabric, of course, or paper like this one); or napkins in soft pastel hues (like these for example); or quite simply by tying a white napkin with a pastel coloured length of ribbon (as in the picture above): I’m always a fan of pink grosgrain but you could go satin (which is easier to tie), or even a sweet gingham. For a more playful approach, I love the idea of layering these paper placemats: something like these floral ones or these black and white Easter egg designs that you can colour in (a really lovely idea for children).

3. Make it eggs-tra special. You obviously need eggs for the table; and, I really don’t think you can have too many. I quite like scattering Cadbury’s Mini Eggs (or something similarly chocolate coated in delicate, pastel hued sugar) directly onto the table surface, nestled in amongst the flowers. It’s quite nice to have a mix of sizes, as well as colours and shapes, so you could add in some real eggs (ideally boiled first, and if you can choose ones with different coloured shells, like these and these for example, better still). If you’re feeling crafty, you could even decorate or paint the eggs and then either use them as a centrepiece on the table, collected together in a dish or basket; or place a single egg on top of each place setting. My friend Fiona uses nail polish to decorate eggs with a marbled effect and they look beautiful: here is a short tutorial on how to do it. It’s deliciously hypnotic to watch even if you don’t plan on painting anything yourself. Still, a single marbled egg sitting in an egg cup, perhaps with a name tag tied to it (like these marbled paper ones) would make for a very chic Easter-without-being-overly-cutesy place setting. Alternatively a single egg (egg egg or chocolate egg) undecorated in a pretty or playful egg cup like this rabbit one or this chicken one is a really simple and fun way of decorating the table, then each guest can take the egg cup home as an Easter gift, or each family member can keep theirs for years to come.

4. Put a bow on it. There’s nothing strictly Easter about it, but I’m very taken with tying napkins in a bow like this. It’s super simple to do: you fold and iron your napkin in half, and then half again into a rectangular shape, much as you would normally do when folding and ironing a napkin; then turn it around so that the longest side is parallel to you; pinch the napkin together in the middle and tie with a length of wide ribbon leaving the bow-tails (is that what you call them?) hanging long. I used a natural linen cut into wide ribbon strips like this here, but you could choose any ribbon you like, though I do think that wide works best.

ON THE MENU

Planning what to cook - breakfast, lunch and dinner - is always the bit I enjoy most about any holiday, but Easter is an especially good one with lots of fresh spring produce to play around with.

For breakfast: I do love a hot cross bun. Toasted, buttered very, very generously (almost to the point of excess) and finished off with just a sprinkling of salt flakes. I rarely go to the effort of baking my own buns, but on those occasions when I have (the last time, I think, was during lockdown), I use this recipe from Rose Prince, my go-to authority for all things bread and for many things delicious. Otherwise, a soft boiled egg with soldiers feels somehow appropriate breakfast fare on Easter Day (India Knight’s thesis on how best to cook eggs might prove helpful here); or a slice or two of colomba, that Italian Easter cake shaped like the dove of peace (hence the name: ‘colomba is Italian for ‘dove’) which tastes rather like a panettone but with a plainer, pillowy dough and a sugar-y almond topping. Cake for breakfast is always a good thing.

For lunch: it’s lamb. That’s certainly what I’ll be cooking this year, much as I do every year, though I’m not wedded to any single recipe. I do love this recipe for rack of lamb, doused in honey with a crackling of crumbled nuts and sweet dried figs and apricots. And another favourite of mine is Joanna Weinberg’s rack of lamb with rose petal jam sauce: a recipe that I’ve adopted from her brilliant cookbook, Feeding Friends with Relish, and which I’ve included a barely adapted version of here below.

Rack of Lamb with Rose Petal Sauce

You can buy rose petal jam (rose petal jam: have you ever heard of anything more romantic?!) in specialist delicatessens or online (here, for example, or here); or you could try making your own. Otherwise, if you can’t get your hands on any, Weinberg suggests replacing with an equivalent amount of quince or redcurrant jelly mixed with 2 teaspoons of rosewater.

Serves 6

For the marinade
6 garlic cloves, crushed
6 tbsp rosewater
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tsp lemon juice
3 tbsp olive oil
3 racks of lamb (roughly 18 cutlets), with a French trim

For the rose petal sauce
170g rose petal jam
A small bunch of fresh mint, finely chopped
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt flakes
Freshly ground black pepper

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together and slather generously all over the lamb, then put in a plastic bag and leave to marinate overnight in the fridge (or for at least an hour). Every now and then, squish and swirl the marinade around the meat, so it’s all nicely covered.

Heat the oven to 200˚C fan / 220˚C non-fan / Gas 7, take the lamb out of the fridge, set on a roasting tray, bones pointing up, and bring it to room temperature before putting it into the oven. Make the rose petal sauce by whisking all the ingredients together in a small dish, and set to one side. Roast the lamb in the oven for 22-26 minutes, depending on how pink or well done you like it. Once cooked, take out of the oven and let the meat rest for 20-30 minutes before serving with a drizzle of the rose scented sauce.

If you’re cooking for a very large gang, however, you might prefer a slow cooked cut of lamb, because the timings are more forgiving and it’s the kind of shove it in the oven and forget about it cooking that works so well when it comes to catering for larger numbers. I love this brilliant recipe from Diana Henry or this one from Nigel Slater.

And for a vegetarian alternative, I love the recipe for Torta Pasqualina (a spinach and ricotta pie with whole boiled eggs in it) in A Table for Friends.

Sides! All the fresh green, springtime veg: peas! Baby artichokes! Buttery lettuce! The first asparagus! I’m a big fan of peas cooked the way my mother does them, where you soften onion in a generous dash of olive oil in a pan, then add frozen peas, cover with vegetable stock and let simmer gently until most of the liquid has evaporated and the peas become so delicious and intensely flavourful that all you really want to eat is the peas. You can find the recipe in full if you need it in A Table in Venice (Nonna’s Peas); I also love the pea and almond salad in that book: both are dishes that can be prepared happily in advance. Then: asparagus - lightly blanched, drenched in olive oil and dressed with a bit of salt - is always a winner; and you would definitely want a few potatoes of some kind, either simply roasted, or a new potato salad (just boil the spuds, douse in olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, heaps of fresh parsley and lots of salt) or a rich and indulgent pommes dauphinoise perhaps (my go-to recipe for that is in A Table for Friends, but a cursory google will churn up lots of other good options too).

And for pudding: colomba is a must have for me, either plain and as is (which has a delightfully purist quality about it) or served with a warm vanilla custard or a drizzle of pistachio cream (you can buy this kind in a jar, then gently warm it in the microwave for 20 seconds or so, just long enough to loosen the butter into a delectable, honeyed and drizzle-y consistency). But my favourite thing to do is serve the colomba with a saffron scented white chocolate sauce (the recipe from A Table for Friends with the frozen berries) and then some fresh strawberries - or even better tiny, wild strawberries - to go with it.

For supper: I love picky food on the eve of a big feast day. There’s nothing quite like a good leftovers’ sandwich. For this you won’t need a recipe, but you do need very good bread. Something like a soft challah would be glorious or a crusty white baguette (if you bought these frozen and then baked them off just in time to make sandwiches that would be a very fine thing). The meat (I’m assuming it’s lamb but the same principle applies with pretty much any kind of roast), should be at room temperature, never cold from the fridge. Then as to what else you put into your sandwich: I like something a little sharp to cut through the fattiness of the lamb, like a few slivers of quick pickled red onion (soak finely sliced red onion in 2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar together with a generous pinch of sugar for 15-20 minutes); and, of course, a dollop of mint jelly. That in itself is more than enough, but if you have any leftover peas you may want to smash them up a little and add them into the sandwich too, or consider a couple of crisp, buttery lettuce leaves. Oh, and chocolate eggs for pudding of course.

EASTER EGGS & OTHER EASTER-Y THINGS

We have a strong family tradition of competitive egg hunting, and our annual Easter egg hunt in our garden on Easter Sunday morning is something I plan and look forward to every year. How we do it: we gather together as many children as we can (because it really is one of those the-more-the-merrier kind of things, and it’s a lovely moment to invite friends over for morning tea and a slice of colomba while the children play and hunt for eggs). Technically, only children compete but we all take part. I like to organise the eggs by a colour theme: so each child (or hunter) is allocated a colour and then everything they can find in that colourway is theirs to keep. This system helps manage any squabbling over whose eggs belong to whom, and it also means that the little ones stand as good a chance of collecting a decent haul as the big ones. Not all eggs will match the chosen colour palettes, of course, but there are imaginative ways of fudging it: you can mark the eggs, for example, with an appropriately coloured sticker; slip an egg (or handful of smaller eggs) into a small cellophane bag and tie with an appropriately coloured ribbon; or pop into a colourful striped paper bag. Then, you give everyone a basket to gather the eggs in and send them on their way: I spotted these little bunny baskets and thought they looked sweet, or you could give each child a paper shopping bag or party bag; super chic would be to have one of these baskets customised with each child’s name, then they can come out for the hunt each year and be repurposed to store toys, or what have you, for the rest of the time.

What to hide? In my experience, chocolate eggs is undoubtedly what goes down the best. Occasionally we sneak a few painted eggs or decorative Easter bunnies in there, but they’re never especially well received. It’s nice to have a mix of little chocolate ones (clusters of mini eggs and the little chocolate eggs that come wrapped in shiny foil, for example), medium sized eggs (like a Creme Egg and a Kinder Egg) alongside the odd larger I’ve-hit-the-jackpot egg; and I usually add in a few Lindt chocolate bunnies (baby and big) too.

And what to give the grown ups? Here are some of my favourites:

Too pretty to eat biscuits, finely decorated with pastel hued sugar icing.

Birley’s Bakery make possibly the best chocolate in town and their dark chocolate eggs are no exception.

A box of salted caramel chocolates that look uncannily like actual gull’s eggs.

When Prada does chocolate eggs.

Milk chocolate and honeycomb. Enough said, really.

Picture perfect eggs decorated with gold leaf and hand painted with cherry blossoms. Each one is a miniature, bejewelled piece of edible art.

If Fabergé eggs were made of chocolate…

Chicly understated to look at, but filled with stuff-of-dreams salted maple caramels from master chocolatier William Curley.

A hand-painted large egg that is every bit as delicious to look at as it is to eat.

A chocolate egg so sweet, the bees will flock to it.

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This is a bonus post just in time for the Easter holidays: it’s for all subscribers, and free to read (free posts are normally just once a month). Happy Easter! To receive regular and weekly posts, you will need a subscription which you can sign up for here.