Life Behind The Purple Door: easter

Sunday, 31 March 2013

I realised this morning that it's been very easy to fall into the "can't be bothered" trap with this pregnancy. Some of that is left over from the aneamia (and I'm not in the clear with that, but being pregnant means they can't get to the bottom of it), and some of it is related to money pressures, and some of it is related to feeling big and ungainly and plain worn out. It's hard work growing a person!

But I got cranky with myself this morning, and decided to just do it! I've been wanting to make some Easter bunny ears for the kids and today I'd had enough of my procrastination. I knew I had everything here, so materials wouldn't be a problem, I just needed to get on with it.

I didn't take photos of the process, because Amy's tutorial is pretty thorough. At the last minute, I decided to use a stabiliser between my ear pieces, to make them stand up more. And I've only managed to sew one set out of six, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

I need a haircut!

Here's hoping I get the rest finished before Sunday!

Are you creating anything for Easter?

recipe | hot cross bun

I used to make hot cross buns three or four times before easter, but in the last couple of years I haven't had the time or the recipe. With the return of my oven this week, I knew I needed to get back into the kitchen, so what better way than with hot cross buns on Good Friday!

choc chip cross buns

Ingredients for buns
4 cups plain flour (all purpose flour)
1tsp mixed spice
1tsp salt
60g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar (fine sugar)
7g dry yeast (1 sachet)
1/2 cup sultanas or currants or choc chips
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup lukewarm water
1 egg

1 - Sift flour, spice and salt into a bowl. Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar, yeast and sultanas (currants or choc chips). Add water, milk and egg. Stir gradually.
2 - Turn dough out and knead until smooth and elastic. Place into greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in warm place for 1-1.5hr, until double in size.
3 - Lightly pat dough out to 3cm (1in) thick. Cut into 14 pieces. Roll into balls, and place on greased tray. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for 20-30min.
4 - preheat oven to 200°C

Ingredients for crosses
1/3 cup self-raising flour
1/4 cup water
(I added a teaspoon of cocoa powder to make my chocolate crosses)

1 - mix ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Spoon into piping bag or ziploc bag and pipe a cross on each bun.

Bake buns for 15min or until golden.

Ingredients for glaze
2Tbs hot water
1Tbs sugar
1/4tsp gelatine

1 - combine ingredients in a small bowl. Brush over the buns. Stand near turned off oven until dry.

My notes
I omitted step 5 of the buns method (brushing the tops with a beaten egg)
I used a whole packet of Cadbury dark chocolate baking chips
I baked two batches - both batches took almost 30 minutes to bake. I also got over 20 buns from each batch, and would make them even smaller next time.
I brushed the glaze on the buns as soon as I took them out of the oven.

hot cross buns

Recipe from Margaret Fulton via Woolworths Fresh magazine

Easter in Autumn

It didn't occur to me until I saw Beverly's post that my Easters of now are so different to the Easters of my childhood (I grew up not far from where Amy lives now)

When I was a child, Easter (and school holidays) meant mum and dad worked at the Home Show (which now seems to be broken into two shows - the Herald Sun Home Show, and the HIA Home Show. It was ten days of shows in the "old days").

The weather could be cold and wet, or sunny and hot, or sunny and wet, or any combination of these. Leaves turned brown and dropped off, shedding coats to sleep through the cold. Daylight savings had ended, and days were shorter, waking up in the dark, getting home in the dark.

In Queensland, Autumn means cooler weather, not less sun. Autumn means rain and green growth, and some trees shedding their coats. The end of the summer storm season can be ferocious, damaging trees and buildings, or constant, day after day of interminable rains. But the constant these days is sunshine and green.

A new location to explore today

What does Easter weather look like for you?

grateful | for an extra hug

Today, I am grateful that I find it difficult to step outside my comfort zone. See, there's a blogging conference on at the moment. In Melbourne. And I was going to buy a ticket when they were released 8 months ago, but I stopped myself with silly words about how it's "not my scene", "you won't know anyone", "you have nothing to share", etc.

The blogasphere has been all a-twitter with news and status updates, and posts from attendees, and posts from un-attendees.

But if I had gone to the conference, I would have missed this girl wearing her hat in her first Easter bonnet parade at big school. In fact, she thought I had missed it. She walked around the school hall with a sad face because she couldn't see me, tucked away at the back.

I moved to a better spot for her to see me, and she smiled. Then we waalked back to her classroom, and I asked her if she had been sad that she couldn't see me, and she promptly burst into tears (and so did I! Her teacher has seen me cry more times than any other teacher!) Her teacher took her aside, calmed her down, and then we took photos, hugged, and left her to eat ~~Easter eggs~~ morning tea.

If I had gone to the conference, I wouldn't have had that extra hug with my girl.

piquing my pinterest | only 57 days

until Easter!

I know, it's not even Valentine's day yet, but when something caught my eye on pinterest I had to do a search.

Source: singforyoursupperblog.com via Cate on Pinterest

Doesn't this bunny bait just make you want to search pinterest for other awesome ideas?

Source: google.com via Cate on Pinterest

This centrepiece is pretty spectacular, right up my alley.

Source: sweetpaul.typepad.com via Cate on Pinterest

We usually use the long weekend of Easter to get a project finished, but Sunday is always set aside to enjoy the day. I could enjoy the day with a table set like this.