Easter Treats (and cheats)

EASTER Sunday and we catered for ten friends and family members.
Seeing as it was a holy day where I wholly wanted to be eating chocolate eggs and hot cross buns, I decided to give myself a helping hand in the kitchen.
I'd love to say I glamorously 'called in the caterers', but the budget didn't stretch that far so I took inspiration from some Delia/Nigella Express-style cheats instead.
The buffet-style menu featured the following dishes (which contained the following 'cheat' ingredients):

• Puff pastry tarts topped with balsamic red onions, goats' cheese and fresh thyme, and tomato, mozzarella and basil leaves. I used ready-to-roll puff pastry. No one makes their own puff pastry. Not even Gordon Ramsay
• Sticky chicken drumsticks roasted in a marinade which included a packet of the new Schwartz Shotz spice mix

• Classic potato salad. No cheats involved except - like Nigella - I used kitchen scissors to snip fresh chives into the mayonnaise. On second thoughts, it was shop-bought mayo too
  
• Red cabbage, carrot and walnut coleslaw in honey and mustard dressing, courtesy of English Provender Company
• Tomato, basil and pinenut salad. Completely cheat free. I even sliced the tomatoes
• Mixed leaf salad, from a cellophane bag. And bread from Marks and Sparks
• Sainsburys hot cross bun bread and butter pudding, in the style of Jamie Oliver's TV advert. Yes, I used ready-made custard from the chiller. And I buttered the buns, before marmalading them, for extra decadence
• Mixed berry pavlova. Homemade and decorated by the boy to stunning effect
• Easter chocolate muffins made from a chocolate bread mix from Saxon Chocolates and then topped with a nest of buttery chocolate ganache (hand-beaten, I hasten to add) and Cadbury Mini Eggs.

I am sure even the purist of chefs will agree that sometimes only a cheat (or three) will do, especially when time stands between you and a mountain of chocolate.
What's your favourite cheat ingredient? Let me know.....

Easter Egg Hunt

ASIDE from Christmas I can't think of a better excuse to binge on chocolate than Easter.
I just love to peal back the foil wrapper and crack open one of those hollow chocolate lovelies - before devouring the lot.
The little shards of chocolate just disintegrate in your mouth, and before you know it it's all gone. And you need to open another.
If you are still looking for some Easter treats for a loved one - or, even better, for yourself - I have scouted Birmingham's shops for the quirkiest goodies to save you the last minute hunt!
Hotel Chocolat, in the Bullring, has a truly innovative Easter selection including Easter Egg Sandwiches (pictured), which my other half proclaimed 'the best Easter egg he'd ever tasted'. High praise indeed, from a chocolate connoisseur.
There's also extra thick chocolate eggs, crammed with Hotel Chocolat's most popular filled chocs, with witty titles such as You Crack Me Up (pictured) and The Eggshibitionist.
The indulgent goodies don't come cheap, but you get what you pay for.
Similarly, Lindt chocolate always gets the thumbs up in my house. The sight of their classic gold bunnies. pictured, lined up - with ears pricked attentively - in supermarkets and food halls always signifies to me that Easter fun is only a hot cross bun away.
I have a friend who likes to eat the ears first, in one go. Cocoa sadist.
Bunnies are also a prominent feature of Tonkey's Easter range.
The Belgian chocolatier has irresistible confectionery rabbits and hens, which come in their own wood and wire cages. The bunny even has its own orange chocolate carrot. Almost too cute to eat. Almost.
Tonkey's products are available in Harvey Nichols and Selfridges however, I recommend heading to Waitrose where the same items retail at £5 less.
Infact, Waitrose proved to be a bit of a mecca for unusual Easter eggs with gourmet selections from The Chocolate Alchemist and James Chocolates.
But my favourite has to be the Create your own Easter-egg head by Stas (pictured), which comes with a pot of choccie goo.
Other products which caught my eye around town included praline chocolate 'quail's' eggs in Harvey Nichols, which come in their own clear plastic egg carton; Kshocolat's chocolate eggs with biscuit dunking soldiers in House of Fraser and the sublime extravagantly-wrapped eggs in Chou Choute.
And no Brummie Easter Egg round-up would be complete without a mention of the chocoholics paradise that is Cadbury.
The Bournville-based firm has impressively reduced its egg packaging this year by at least 25 per cent. I just love their line in Egg Heads, pictured, which have no cardboard packaging and are just wrapped in foil. Even easier to access.
You can't beat a bit of Cadbury's chocolate!
What would you like for Easter? Let me know...