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Easter is one of our favourite times of year - a renewing time. Nature springs to life again here in Scotland with snowdrops and crocuses poking their heads through the ground and daffodils on the way too. As with Christmas/Yule, many traditions have contributed to Easter as we know it today including the pagan festival of Oestara and Christian beliefs. It is a time of throwing out the old and taking on the new. It has to be said though - for many it is merely an excuse to eat too much chocolate!!
UK Easter goodies . USA Easter goodies . Recipes, gifts and ideas
Other food pages: Kitchen - Soups . Sauces and Dips . Salads . Main Courses . Cakes and Puddings Easter . Chocolate . Christmas/Yule . Vegan Cook Books . Food links . printable index
UK Easter Goodies Green and Blacks Maya Gold Easter Egg (organic and fair traded) - about £2.89 from health food shops and some supermarkets - a good sized egg, boxed and wrapped in gold foil - this wins our "best buy" Green and Black's Dark Chocolate Egg Divine's dark chocolate egg and mini dark eggs Kinnerton Eggs: Lindt solid 70% cocoa mini eggs (available in many supermarkets) - gold foil wrapping (there is a chance of cross contamination with most companies that make milk chocolate too) - also the elusive, dark chocolate bunny is vegan :) Whizzer's mini eggs (available in health food stores, some branches of Sainsbury's and the Veganstore below) - about 69p Booja Booja do a large egg with truffles for about £10 - the Hazelnut Crunch Rocher and Around Midnight Expresso varieties are vegan - available from health food shops and Animal Aid below. 
Ethical Superstore stock fair traded easter eggs, some of which are vegan such as dark varieties of Green and Blacks and Divine. Dietary Needs Direct a fabulous selection of vegan Easter goodies including carob and chocolate eggs of various sizes in a variety of pretty packaging, bunnies, chicks (love the hatching chick lolly!). The Veganstore always have a good selection for Easter. Animal Aid have a nice selection. Hotel Chocolat
USA Easter Goodies Obviously we do not know so much about what is available in other countries but Vegan Essentials should have a good selection:
Recipes, Gifts and Ideas
Chocolate nests with tiny eggs Ingredients: 3 breakfast wheat biscuits (ie: weetabix), crumbled 1 large bar vegan chocolate (100g/3 and a half oz/half a cup) Mini eggs (Whizzer's, or make your own with marzipan or vegan fondant icing) Patty or muffin tin Paper cake or muffin cases (10 to 20 depending how big you make the nests)
Place your paper cases in the tin. Melt the chocolate and stir into the crumbled weetabix. Put a spoonful of the mixture into each case and shape with the spoon into a rough 'nest' shape. How big or small you make these is entirely up to you! Leave to cool and set (in the fridge is fastest). Then place two or three mini eggs in each nest - simple!
Little Orange Easter Cakes Ingredients: 300g/10 oz./2 cups self-raising flour a quarter teaspoon baking powder a quarter teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 100g/4oz/half a cup golden caster sugar 5 tablespoons of sunflower oil 1 cup of soya milk the juice and rind of one orange 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 100g. bar of Green and Blacks dark chocolate Whizzers mini eggs or other sweets to decorate Paper cake cases (this makes about 25 small cakes)
Preheat oven to 190C/380F. Combine the dry ingredients then stir in the oil, soya milk, juice and rind and vanilla essence. Put a couple of teaspoons of mixture into each cake case (if using small cases) and bake for about 15 minutes or until done. Allow to cool, then melt the chocolate and spread on top of the cakes. Decorate each cake with one mini egg or other sweets of your choice.
Home made easter eggs and bunnies Another good idea for Easter is to make your own sweets. Specialist baking shops stock chocolate moulds - last year we bought mini eggs, large eggs and mice moulds. They also sell coloured foil for wrapping. Remember you can use these moulds again and again over the years so it will save money in the long run.
Home made gift idea A few years ago year our children had been admiring the cuddly animals holding a net bag of little eggs that are so prevalent in shops at this time of year. We bought suitable, small cuddlies and make our own net bags filled with Lindt mini eggs and Whizzers and then attached this to the toy with a couple of stitches. You can either buy net or save the netting that citrus fruit is usually packaged in. You could also make your own eggs and/or even your own cuddly animal if you like! Also see our own kids books section with books from Harry Potter to Herb the Vegetarian Dragon - some springtime gift ideas below:
'Billywise' by Judith Nicholls and Jason Cockcroft - an incredibly beautiful book in both text and illustration. It tells the tale of a baby owl from hatching to daring to learn to fly with the gentle encouragement of his mother - quite breathtaking pictures.
'Baa humbug! - a sheep with a mind of his own' by Mike Jolley and Deborah Allwright - a rather irreverent story of a sheep who is not afraid to be different. He doesn't like sheep dip or being sheared and saves his friends from becoming lamb chops! Age 5-8
And for adults from non-fiction and fiction:
'Vegan Planet - 400 Irresistible Recipes with Fantastic Flavors from Home and Around the World' by Robin Robertson. With a forward by Neal Barnard of PCRM this newly published (February 2003) cookbook is like several books rolled into one. If you only want to buy one vegan recipe book maybe this should be the one - with recipes for breakfasts, sandwiches, sauces, mains, burgers, puds and lots more, a large diversity of cuisine styles and additional facts on the sidebars this is a jewel of a book!
'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris. When Vianne Rocher and her daughter Anouk open a chocolate cafe and shop opposite the church in a small French village they start a battle between paganism and Christianity, in the mind of the local priest anyway. Chocolate itself has a leading role here - a wonderful mix of magic and food. The book culminates with an Easter festival. Don't start reading this book if you have no chocolate in the house!
Easter Chocolate cake ( printable recipe) decorated with whizzers mini eggs and toy chicks. Other recipes that might be of use from around the site:Cat's luscious truffles
One year we made Easter baskets for the children containing little chocolate eggs, bunnies, carob bunnies in an egg shaped gift box, crayons, pencils, notebook and toy bunny, chick and duck - a great success! Another year we had our own little egg hunt round the garden with eggs that we had made the day before in chocolate moulds. We then went to a local country park and joined in a large egg hunt for painted wooden eggs - both Daniel and Charlotte found one and were very pleased.
Good Friday 2002
Other Easter sites: EasterLinks.com - directory of Easter sites 123 Greetings Easter page (ecards)
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though the chocolate is quite strong tasting which some children might not like
Bart Simpson dairy-free eggs have been spotted in Tescos and Waitrose (might only be larger stores) and also on our kitchen table (see right!)
'The Spring Equinox - celebrating the greening of the Earth' - stories from different cultures and traditions - also hands on activities for children.