Easter 2016

What a beautiful day we were blessed with on Easter Sunday! The weather was glorious! We had a baptism at church which always seems to make the service more special. And, there was a crowd of friends around tables laden with delicious food.

We came back from our spring vacation just a few days before Easter (can't wait to post about that!) so there was a day to shop and a day to bake! I started with these gluten free hot cross buns. I use Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust mix as the base and add in lemon and orange zest, mixed spice, and golden raisins and currants.

Then came the "true" hot cross buns which I made in large quantities because my kids love them so much. This year I only baked one tray at a time in the oven and that did make them even better!

 I found beautiful chocolate eggs at Costco and they made the table look so festive. Not only that but my daffodils were in full bloom and even though I picked large bunches for inside there were still so many left outside!

There were no pictures of the appetizers but for lunch we had ham, rice salad, spinach berry salad, carrots, and roasted asparagus.

Here is the girls' table:

And the boys' table under which one of mine is hiding!

And the long adult table which managed to squeeze 16!

The funniest thing about this gathering was the mix of food allergies/intolerances. Nearly everyone coming had something. I almost wanted to make a chart. Some people could have gluten but no eggs, or no gluten and no eggs but dairy, or no gluten and no dairy but eggs, and then I remembered one person was allergic to earl grey tea and I'd soaked the fruit for the regular buns in earl grey so managed to leave it out of the gluten free. On and on it went!!! Ha ha!

So, for dessert we had a gluten free cheesecake with amazing berry filling and topping, a gluten free pavlova with lemon cream, gluten free/egg free cupcakes, gluten free/egg free key lime pie, and gluten free, dairy free, and refined sugar free lemon curd tart! What a riot!

And up close picture of the cheesecake!

And one of the pavlova, whose recipe is here.

And the GF, DF, SF Lemon Curd Tart which I made from Paleo Patisserie. Wow this is so, so good! Thankfully there were lots of leftovers. I've been eating a piece everyday! The crust is made with almond flour and maple syrup, the lemon curd with maple syrup as well and the coconut cream has vanilla and maple syrup.

We had tea, of course! Hands down everyone's favorite tea from recent events is the special Chinese tea that a friend from China sent to us. Not being a huge fan of Chinese tea, I'm surprised at how much I love it. In fact, it's nearly addicting. Our only dilemma is how we can get more of this tea!!!

I also tried some maple syrup sweetened coconut candies which turned out very well and will be repeated next year. I tried some mock peanut butter eggs with sun butter. You know, I just can't get used to sun butter. I think we'll stick with coconut.

Another friend made these dairy free caramel filled hearts. She made the caramel with honey!!

Here is a kid picture from the Easter egg hunt.

The sky was such a lovely blue and the kids could run around without coats!

I love this picture!!!

 I found a basket to display our Lithuanian Easter eggs which we have collected over the last 5 years. Every year we get a little better at it.

Now Easter is just memories but it is nice that we still have this week off of school. I'm busy trying to get the household chores done that get postponed while we are in school. And I'm also enjoying spring!!!