As it's easter time I thought I'd bake some traditional easter treats, starting with these crisp easter biscuits with lemon zest and currants. Making these reminded me of childhood as I recall my mum making them at some point. I took my recipe from the Readers Digest recipe book, one that my mum has owned for quite a long time. I think this is a brilliant book as it contains all the British classics and a brief description of the history behind most of the recipes which I find really interesting (considering I don't really like history!). I also took my simnel cake recipe from here, as this is the one my mum has used in the past. This is a lovely moist, flavoursome cake which is packed with dried fruit and has a sweet layer of marzipan running throught the middle. The cake is baked at a very low temperature (gas mark 1) for 1.5-2 hours so you have to be patient! I think I over baked mine slightly so after taking it out the oven and letting it cool I brushed the top in some amaretto liqueur (hehe!) It smelt absolutely delightful as the amaretto enhanced the almondy flavour. I decorated the top in marzipan and 11 marzipan balls which represent the disiples of Jesus. I also made a simnel loaf cake along with this so I could cut it up into slices and give out as gifts (meaning I wouldn't have to give away any of our cake!).

This year I also really wanted to have a go at making hot cross buns- slightly sweet spiced bread with dried fruit traditionally eaten in Britain on Good Friday. I've never made bread before so I was unsure as to whether they would be successful. Everything was going well- the dough rose beautifully the first time but unfortunately when I shaped the dough into buns and left them to prove, the house just wasn't warm enough for them to rise so I ended up with rather heavy, cake-like buns! This was quite annoying considering I'd spent all day making them, but they actually taste quite nice and I almost like their denser texture! However, I have still bought a pack of hot cross buns from the shop, Birds, where I work which I know will be good! Nevermind, I'm just going to fob them off as hot cross 'rock' buns instead!