Cuisine – Sweet Easter treats

With Easter weekend not away, it’s time to think everything sweet. The Easter Bunny will be a much-anticipated part of the long weekend, as no doubt any parents and grandparents like me know. The supermarket has been filled with chocolate treats for some weeks, and it seems no sooner was Valentine’s Day over than those pesky packs of hot cross buns appeared.

I used to bake my own buns, as there’s something special about the yeasty aromas wafting through the house. But several artisan bakeries now produce spicy soft buns that are far superior to mine, so that’s another tradition lost to convenience in our house. All hot cross buns should be served heated, with lots of butter. The buns are perfect for microwave reheating as their dense texture becomes soft and fluffy with a mere 20 seconds per bun on high power. They’re even better with a spoonful of raspberry or strawberry jam. I confess to eating more than my share of them in the weeks leading up to Easter as I just can’t resist this treat.

Chocolate is also at the top of the list of sweet Easter treats and I make no apology for my preference for those little old-fashioned marshmallow eggs coated in milk chocolate. Inexpensive, and admirable, as mostly they are sold in cellophane packs with no extra unnecessary fancy wrapping. But equally good is the range of chocolate from our speciality chocolate makers. We are fortunate in the district to have a couple of chocolate boutiques that have been doing overtime producing specialties for Easter.

Both Honest Chocolat in Matakana Village and Chocolate Brown in Warkworth offer a very interesting, deliciously crafted range of Easter treats. There’s another chocolate maker in the district who also makes chocolate to the highest of standards – Foundry chocolate is produced by husband and wife team David and Janelle Herrick, at Mahurangi West. Look for their specialty bean to bar blocks of chocolate that are made from superior raw chocolate sourced from tiny sustainable producers around the world.

I will be making one of my favourite chocolate cake recipes this Easter. My mother shared this brownie cake recipe with me – it’s a lovely moist, almost gooey, cake that keeps for ages when well stored in the refrigerator. I love to use fresh raspberries, as raspberry and chocolate is one of my all-time best flavour combinations. Frozen raspberries work well, too, and if you have plenty of these ruby jewel-like fruit, whizz up a fresh raspberry puree with sugar to taste to serve with the cake. Either whipped cream or thick Greek yogurt will turn this into a lovely dessert for your Easter feast.

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Chocolate raspberry brownie cake

400g caster sugar
200g butter
4 eggs, beaten
2 tsp pure vanilla essence
75g cocoa (I use Valrhona)
100g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup frozen raspberries (or fresh)
icing sugar for dusting

Pre-heat the oven to 170°C. Prepare a 22cm square tin by buttering the sides and base and dusting with flour. Shake off any excess flour.

Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until soft and fluffy. Add the eggs, a little at a time, with the vanilla and beat well.

Sift the cocoa, flour and baking powder together, and fold carefully into the mixture.

Turn half the mixture into the prepared tin. Scatter over half the raspberries, and then top with the remaining mixture. Dot the top with raspberries, and place the tin in the oven.

After 50 minutes, check the cake is cooked by poking the middle with a wooden skewer. If it comes out clean and the cake has started to pull away from the sides of the tin, remove it from the oven. Turn out onto a wire rack and when cool, dust the top with icing sugar.

Serve with freshly whipped cream, or a thick Greek style plain yogurt and raspberry sauce made from 1 cup raspberries pureed with 3 tablespoons sugar.

Cuts into at least 12 pieces.