Up market Easter picnic

Our Easter picnic every year is hilarious...tubs of marg, loafs of bread and packs of ham just purchased on the way to the picnic.  This year I warned them all we were going up market and to get their picnics in order.  I have been pinning a bit but hadn't really planned a table because I am busy with Finlay's party plans but it got to Friday and me and my sister decided we really should put in some effort.

Eatser biscuits... Uncle Grant kept changing this to Teaser and I tried to fix it but ended up with Eatser!  Haha I can't spell!

That's better :) Recipe for these here.

Sandwiches 

Mini quiches and crackers 

 Cheese board and sweets

My little Easter Bunny! I have been practicing my face painting -my gran thought she was a tiger!

Two face - very Easter-ish!

 A bunny in the hedge

 Easter banner

Marshmallow lollypops











Little gingham cover for the potato salad












Easter picnic up market style with bunting, wicker and brown paper.  The other guests at our picnic still brought their marg in a tub, ham in a packet and uncut breadsticks....however there were homemade shorties, custard creams and cranberry biscuits so they were allowed on our table:)

 There were also mini trifles I made which are so cute - I found these little jars in Ikea and have been waiting to use them for something brilliant like this.  

I also found these bottles in Ikea and filled them with cherry juice and pear and elderflower juice

Not so up-market drinks station!  There were 8 adults so we had a flask each - I don't know how much tea and coffee we thought we were going to get through!  It was quite a cold day - still some snow on the ground but much better weather than we expected!  

So good to keep the Easter tradition going with a picnic whatever the weather but a nice change to eat such lovely picnic food! 

Happy Easter 2013! 

Happy Easter!

I made some Easter biscuits this week - we always without fail go for an Easter picnic with the whole family. This year it will be waterproofs and sledges but we will be there rolling our eggs in the snow!  I got alphabet cutters the other week and I have been dying to use them.  I love to make biscuits - decorating does get me stressed out but I love the idea.  Check out my pinterest board on biscuits / cookies.

And I LOVE LOVE LOVE cutters.  I have a real obsession.


This is the box that arrived the other day of cutters!  I already struggle to fit the ones I have in my cupboards!  It is ridiculous.  Like my ribbon obsession I can't stop myself!  This box doesn't even include the alphabet set!









The Easter biscuits or sugar cookies recipe I used was adapted from Kate Shirazi Cookie Magic.  Usually I use her recipe and the biscuits always work out but I read somewhere online about changing quantities to stop problems with crumbliness so I adapted and these worked out really well.

 I had fun with Finlay making up words out of the Easter biscuit letters...

For the icing I had read about using corn syrup to make a hard icing that could be stacked but I live in Scotland and to get corn syrup you need to go to a specialist shop - I don't do planning for baking and buying in advance so I knew I would never get round to doing that.  I looked online and found you could use golden syrup - which I always have - or "sybit" as Eliza likes on her toast but I was very dubious.  Milk and syrup mixed with icing sugar and a drop of lemon juice...sounds wrong to me.  But it worked!!!.  My photos look terrible as usual with flashback I really need to learn but the icing has set very hard and isn't wet like it looks on here!


I have not attempted to freeze these but I have regularly frozen Kate Shitrazi recipe biscuit dough as soon as I have made it and it works really well.  You can also freeze them already cut.  How I would love to have a stash of every letter of the alphabet in my freezer for when I'm having an ass of a day.....

Tee hee.....Finlay thought this was the best combination.  Haha.  I teach him such great life lessons.  Bite my ass.....



Recipe I used for biscuits
225g unsalted butter
200g icing sugar (sifted)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
375g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven 175°C.   Cream together butter and sugar, add in vanilla.  Add egg.  Add baking powder/flour.  Chill half an hour.  Roll, cut, place on baking paper, chill 5 minutes, bake at 175 °C on same baking paper.  Remove after about 10 minutes when just browning.  Allow to cool on same baking paper.  Move to cooling rack on baking paper and leave to harden.  I tried to move these with a spatula and they broke every time so I couldn't use my Pampered Chef stoneware for these whereas the original Kate Shirazi recipe allowed these to be picked up almost immediately.  These biscuits that I made though seem to taste better (in Finlay's opinion anyway - and he eats them without icing as he doesn't like it)

Icing recipe for those who do
I just threw together what I thought for quantities but I just looked online and there is a recipe similar:
1 cup icing sugar
1 tbs milk
1tbs syrup (they say corn but golden worked well - has a slightly yellow colour though so white icing may be a problem)
1 drop lemon juice

If you need a cutter I am bound to have it.....