Countdown to Easter

It is Maundy Thursday. "Maundy" is a corruption of "mandatum," which means "command." That's where we get our word "mandate," and in this case it refers to the commandment of Jesus to "love one another as I have loved you," which is a pleasant thing to contemplate.

On this day, your local churches might have foot-washing ceremonies, dramas of the Last Supper, blessings of oils, or other rituals that call to mind the Last Supper.

It's a good day to clean house if you have guests coming for Easter.

Easter Countdown

It's time to color your Easter Eggs. Even if you have lovely Sweetique eggs, you probably have to boil and color some of your own.

First, boil some eggs. We have some brown ones here, and they can give you fine subtle colors, but white ones present a blank canvas.

I'm told, by the way, that you can tell what color egg a hen will lay by examining her earlobes. I thought you'd want to know.

Boil the eggs in lots of cold, salted water with a bit of white vinegar in it. As soon as the water boils, cover the pan and turn off the heat. In about 10 minutes, you'll have hard-cooked eggs. Plunge them into cold water right away to give yourself the best chance of peeling them successfully when you get around to peeling them.

You can buy a kit to dye your Easter eggs, but you can also be more adventuresome:

• Float a bit of oil and a bit of paste food color on top of 1/4 cup of water. Dip the egg in and bring it back out fairly quickly for a marbled appearance. If you like, you can dye the egg a solid color first for a base coat.
• Wrap the eggs in cheesecloth with flowers and herbs between the egg and the cloth before you cook them. You never know what you might come up with this way, but they'll be subtle compared to food coloring. Throw some onion skins in if the eggs are white, for a warm cast.
• Put stickers such as circular paper reinforcers and price tags onto eggs -- either natural or with a base coat -- and then dye them. Pull off the stickers for cool geometric shapes. Rubber bands will do a slightly less sharp version of the same thing.

Easter Countdown

With less than a week to go till Easter, it's a great time to decorate and get your place ready for the holiday.

If you're an ambitious holiday decorator, you've already brought out your Easter tree and the large collection of  mixed-media bunnies. We know. For the rest of us, there are some really easy ways to brighten up the house for the holiday:

• Eggs are the quintessential Easter decoration. Bright eggs like ours look terrific in the Sweetique Egg centerpiece, but any clear or open container looks great when you fill it with colored eggs. Look around your house with an open mind -- do you have a brandy snifter, an old fish bowl, a low planter you haven't used lately?
• Flowers are always a good choice, and they're particularly appropriate for spring. We've said it before, and it's still true: if you have limited talent with flowers, use lots. If you have the skills, use a few choice blooms and some twigs for an inexpensive and artful arrangement. It's a trade-off.
• Animals -- not just the Easter bunny, but lambs and chicks and butterflies and ducklings, too -- are charming at Easter. Bring an air of whimsy to the table with a collection of toy baby animals in a basket, or use PDF files from The Toymaker or Martha Stewart to make old-fashioned paper decorations.
• Spring colors can do the trick, too. Change towels, napkins, and table cloths to pastel shades or grab some paper party dishes and napkins in clear spring colors for a quick transformation.

Get the kids in on the fun, too.

Last Day to Order for Easter Delivery

Order your Sweetique Eggs today!

Countdown to Easter: Easter Baskets

If there will be children at your Easter celebration, there should be Easter baskets.

Here are some great things to put in the baskets:

• boiled and colored eggs
• Sweetique eggs
• candy eggs
• chocolate bunnies
• stuffed rabbits
• bubbles and bubble wands (make it yourself with dish soap -- add glycerin for long-lasting bubbles)
• art supplies
• toothbrushes
• seeds to plant
• sports gear (golf clubs will require huge baskets, so don't get carried away)
• harmonica, kazoo, or other small musical instruments
• small books

If your kids are too old for Easter baskets, they can still enjoy a Sweetique gift basket.

Easter Countdown

So what are you doing for fun this Easter? We put silly marzipan carrots on our carrot cake to set the mood, but when you get friends and family together for the holiday, you might want to plan some entertainment.

• Play games. Whether it's Rock Band or charades, games can be fun for all ages.
• Take a hike. Or a short stroll, if that's more your speed. Either way, enjoy spring.
• Hunt Easter eggs. If you're hiding Sweetique Eggs, remember to put them into the fridge for 15 minutes before peeling them, to make it easy to get to the luscious chocolate inside. 
• Dance. Do the Bunny Hop, even.
• Play sports. Touch football or croquet? Up to you!
• Try egg rolling. Set an end point, such as a tree, and push eggs across the lawn with spoons. Make it a race, or just give a prize to everyone who makes it.
• Still feeling competitive? The traditional egg and spoon race has competitors hold an egg in a spoon and race to the finish line. If you have lots of competitors, make two teams and line up to make it a relay race. Each runner has to race to the finish line and then bring the egg back to the next runner and tip the egg into the next runner's spoon before the next runner can take off.

Easter Countdown: What's for Dessert?

We usually have a dozen or two guests at Easter, so we can generally make several different desserts. This year, I'm having just a few, so we have to make the difficult decision: what's for dessert?

I always like to have something citrus and of course something chocolate. This year, I'm combining the two with a Chocolate Bonbon Cake. It's a firm butter cake, like a pound cake, and a good-quality orange marmalade will give a tart flavor and a lovely texture. It'll remind you of chocolates with orange centers.

I used a decorative Bundt pan. The chocolate glaze hardens over the design but lets it show through. However, you can also make this cake in a sheet pan for easy buffet service. Just watch the baking time -- it'll be closer to half an hour. 

Chocolate Bonbon Cake

1 c butter
3/4 c sugar
3 eggs
1 T orange liqueur or vanilla
3 1/2 c. self-rising flour
1 1/3 c fresh orange juice
1/2 c orange marmalade
zest of 2 oranges
2 oz. dark chocolate
2 T butter
1 T cream

Cream butter with sugar till fluffy. Beat in eggs and orange liqueur or vanilla. Alternately add orange juice and flour, beating well after each addition. Stir in orange marmalade and orange zest. Bake in a Bundt pan at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes, or till a cake tester shows it's done.

Melt chocolate with butter and stir in cream. Pour over cooled cake. Garnish with candy orange slices.

Easter Countdown

Continuing our Easter countdown, we've settled our guest list, most of our menu, and the time and place. Now, let's think about getting our space ready.

Spring cleaning makes everything fresh and welcoming. Clear out the winter stuffiness by opening up the house and scrubbing everything. Get the whole family to pitch in, and it won't take as long as you think it will.

Plan the Easter decorations. It's too early to buy cut flowers, but it's just the right time to bring branches in for forcing.

Forsythia, cherry, quince, laurel, redbud, and dogwoods are all good candidates for forcing, if you have some in your yard. Pussy willow and witch hazel are good, too, and they grow wild. Wherever you get your branches, be sure to choose some that have budded nicely.

Cut them and bring them into a warm room. Full a vase with warm water, submerge the cut ends of the branches, and cut them again under the water. Put the branches in the sun. You'll have blossoms for Easter.

If you'd rather go with cut flowers, this is a good time to order them from the florist. You can also do it yourself. If you have nothing in your garden that's ready to cut -- or you don't want to sacrifice the look of the garden for the sake of the indoor decorations -- scope out sources of cut flowers now.

Here's the secret of do-it-yourself floral arrangement: it takes skill to make a few blossoms look elegant and lovely. It takes hardly any skill to make dozens of blossoms look good. So if you have limited knowledge of flower arranging, scout around for the best prices and plan to buy a lot of flowers.

Mass them in pretty vases or jugs on your mantelpiece, coffee tables, or any other flat surface. If you have enough, it'll distract guests from any lack in your spring cleaning, too. For the table, order a Sweetique centerpiece now and you'll have it in plenty of time for Easter.

Irish Chocolate Coffee

Continuing our preparations for St. Patrick's Day, we offer a chocolate variation on traditional Irish Coffee. Irish Coffee is brewed coffee with Irish whiskey and a good dollop of cream. 

Start by brewing up some good hot coffee. For each cup of coffee, add 1/8 cup of ground chocolate and 1 tablespoon of whiskey. Whisk it all together, pour it into cups, and top it with whipped cream. With a steady hand and a stencil, you can decorate the cup with a shamrock for extra festiveness.

Irish Chocolate Cake

St. Patrick's Day will soon be upon us, and you might want to celebrate in Irish style, whether you're of Irish heritage or not. Here's a very special chocolate cake with an Irish air:

Irish Chocolate Cake

3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 T cocoa powder
1/3 cup strong hot tea

1 tsp Irish whiskey
1 1/4 cup self-rising flour

Beat eggs till they're very light and foamy. Gradually beat in sugar. Blend in remaining ingredients and bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees, or till a cake tester shows it's done.

Meanwhile, prepare Chocolate Mousse:

4 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
12 oz. dark chocolate, chopped
1-1/2 cups chilled whipping cream
1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

Whisk eggs and sugar together in a double boiler over hot water, whisking constantly, till smooth and thick. Remove from heat and beat till cool. Melt chocolate . Whip cream to stiff peaks. Fold chocolate and cream into egg mixture along with liqueur.

Cut cake horizontally with a serrated knife to create two layers. Fill and frost cake with chocolate mousse. Decorate in traditional Irish style by wrapping ribbon around the outside of the cake.

Serve this with tea, or with whiskey. Possibly both.

The people of Ireland buy 5 million chocolate Easter eggs a year, making them one of the most serious consumers of the delicacy in the world.

Chocolate Easter Eggs

Sweetique Chocolate Truffle Easter Eggs are natural eggshells, emptied and sterilized and filled with a delicious blend of milk and dark chocolate with hazelnuts. These amazing eggs are then colored with brilliant designs.

You need these in your Easter baskets.Your Secret Pal, your favorite teacher or secretary, and all your kids will love them and be astonished by them.

Order Sweetique Eggs now so you'll be sure to have them in time for Easter.

Easter Countdown

Now is a good time to plan your menu for the big Easter meal. It's early enough to arrange for helpers and to watch for good prices on special ingredients. You also still have time to order your Sweetique Eggs, and what could be more special than that?

As with so many  holiday meals, Easter often has a traditional set piece: a ham or lamb for the main dish. Your family might be disappointed if that were replaced with something else, but they might be fine with a different way of preparing it. If you usually stud your ham with cloves and glaze it with marmalade, you might find that your family would enjoy a pineapple and mustard glaze instead. If you usually serve a rack of lamb, you might try a leg of lamb instead. However, the main dish is often part of the tradition, and something people look forward to.

You can get creative with your side dishes, though -- especially vegetables. Here are some of our favorite spring vegetable dishes from around the web:

• Grilled Asparagus
• Roasted Vegetables
• Grilled Leeks
• Spanish Salad (I like to add chopped black olives)
• Broccoli Salad

Have carrot sticks for children whose palates might not be ready for these more exciting tastes.

If you're doing all the cooking, it makes sense to have just one or two elaborate dishes and keep the other things simple, so choose simple rice or potatoes if you're doing a show-stopper of a green vegetable. If you're going with plain steamed broccoli or green beans, though, you might like a classic potato dish like these:

• Potatoes Anna
• Potatoes Dauphinoise
• German Potato Salad

We'll be sharing bread and dessert recipes, but these are good choices either to buy or to ask guests to bring. Go ahead now and call that cousin who makes the famous babka or your brother with the perfect tsoureki and invite them to bring their specialties -- they'll be flattered that you asked.

Once you've decided on your menu, make up a list of all the ingredients and carry it in your purse or billfold. Pick up the nonperishables along with your regular grocery shopping, and get the perishables a few days before Easter. If you need to order something -- a special cut of meat at the butcher, for example -- it's time to do that now.

Easter Countdown

We're getting ready for Easter, one day at a time. Once you've got your general logistic planned -- family feast, private celebration, or something in between -- it's good to make yourself a timeline.The bunny here clearly isn't ready for the arriving guests, and we don't want to be in this position.

We've got just about four weeks to get ready, so we can divide the upcoming tasks up that way:

• This week, decide on the place, time, and guest list. Talk with anyone else who should be involved in the decision. Go ahead and order your Sweetique Eggs, too. Make any travel arrangements now.
• Next week, send out the invitations and plan the menu. If you need to shop for Easter baskets, outfits for the children, or supplies for houseguests, go ahead while the selection is good.
• The following week, assign potluck duties, have family portraits made if that's part of your tradition, and clean and decorate the house.
• The week before Easter, shop for food and do advance preparations for the meal. Confirm with your guests and arrange airport pickups and so forth.

When the big day arrives, you'll be calm and ready to enjoy it.

National Pig Day

It is March 1st, National Pig Day.We're not quite sure what people usually do to observe National Pig Day, but it's clear that this is the perfect day to discuss the latest chocolate fad: chocolate bacon.

We've been ignoring this fad, because frankly it doesn't sound that appealing to us. We have to try stuff before we tell you about it, after all. We have to test those recipes and check out the chocolate we offer and look at the raw data for the studies.

We have not been able to persuade ourselves to try chocolate bacon.

You can buy bacon-flavored chocolate, in candy bars, made by everyone from Bella Mia to the haute chocolate Vosges. But you can also make your own chocolate-dipped bacon. Instructables has complete step-by-step instructions for homemade chocolate bacon. The authors tried a variety of chocolates and types of bacon and other pork products and reported fully and, it seems to me, fairly on their results.

We feel that we are off the hook. If you decide to make chocolate bacon, please tell us how it turns out. Shudder.

Chocolate Filled Easter Eggs

We're beginning to see instructions for how to make chocolate-filled eggshells at home.

It can be done. After all, it is a tradition in some parts of Europe to do this. Here's what you do.

You must blow the eggshells out and clean them, and then boil them in vinegar water to sterilize them. Blowing eggs involves poking a hole at each end with a pin and blowing through one of the holes to force the egg out at the other end. You'll then need to color the eggs, and arrange straight pins on foam to hold the eggshells (the ones you don't break while coloring them) without smudging the color.

Then you must temper some chocolate. Ours are a special blend of milk and dark chocolate with hazelnut praline, so you won't get quite the same effect, but you can try. Temper the chocolate, or when you crack the egg it won't look pretty at all. Each egg requires nearly two ounces of first-quality chocolate, so you'll spend as much to make quality chocolate-filled eggs at home as you would to buy them ready-made. Not counting the spilled and wasted chocolate, or what gets burnt or seizes while you're trying to temper it.

Never mind. Soldier on.

Fill the eggs with the melted chocolate through one of those pinholes. Close up the other one, or all the chocolate will run out.

Let the eggs set and then clean them up, since you will have gotten them very messy while filling them. You'll also have to do something with the egg you blew out of the shells.

Frankly, we think you probably would be wiser to buy Sweetique Eggs, Some things -- cookies, say -- are honestly better when you make them at home with love. Other things are better when they're made by experts.

Mardi Gras!

Today is Mardi Gras -- "Fat Tuesday," the day for using up all the luxurious foods in the house before Lent begins with its dietary restrictions. Mardi Gras isn't the only name for the day, though.

Shrove Tuesday is another name for this day, since people would be shriven, or given absolution following a confession, at the beginning of Lent. Its' also called Pancake Tuesday -- it used to be that eggs and cream and butter were forbidden during Lent, so careful housewives would make pancakes to use up what they had on hand. In communities in the United States and in the UK, Pancake Tuesday is celebrated with pancake races, in which racers flip pancakes in skillets as they run.

In many countries in Europe and South America, the entire season between Epiphany (January 6th) and Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) is Carnival., a season of celebration culminating in today's parties and parades.

In Germany, where Sweetique Eggs are made, today is Karneval or Fastnacht, the end of the season of Fasching. There are regional variations in the names and the customs, but generally Fasching is a time for dressing up and partying. It's reminiscent of the U.S. customs of both Halloween and Mardi Gras.

So go ahead and be a bit crazy today, wherever you are!

Chocolate Easter Eggs

True, some of us still need to observe Mardi Gras and Lent before we celebrate Easter. But all of us can celebrate the fact that Sweetique Chocolate Easter Eggs are in stock and ready to ship!

Sweetique Eggs are natural eggshells filled with a special blend of milk and dark chocolates with hazelnuts. You crack the egg as you would a hardboiled egg, peel it, and there you have a delectable solid chocolate truffle egg. Sweetique Eggs come in a variety of bright colors and festive designs, so they make the perfect Easter basket fillers. They also make very nice gifts for Easter -- they're available in several different packaging options, for everything from gifts for children to corporate gifts.

Visit our catalog to make your selection of Sweetique eggs, and we'll ship them to you in our special padded mailing boxes, for safe arrival before Easter.

Valentine's Day Treats

If you have a heart-shaped muffin tin, you can make these sweet little tarts for Valentine's Day.

First, mix up your favorite peanut butter cookie dough -- or use ours.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg

Combine these ingredients, and drop about a tablespoonful into each muffin tin. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 4 oz. chocolate and stir in 2 T cream.

Take the tarts from the oven and use a spoon or a piping bag to fill the centers with chocolate.

No heart-shaped muffin tin? You can also use a regular muffin pan with this simple hack: put a paper muffin cup into each space, spoon in the dough, and set a marble at the base of the paper liner, at the edge. This will create a heart shape as the tart bakes.

Chinese New Year Chocolate

This year, Valentine's Day also happens to be Chinese New Year. If you're celebrating with Chinese food, can you also serve chocolate for Valentine's Day?

Really, you can't let Valentine's Day pass without serving chocolate, can you? While the typical sweet ending for a Chinese meal is a collection of fruit such as the one shown here, there are chocolate desserts that blend well with Chinese food. This recipe is fast and easy, but sophisticated enough for party fare. You'll end up with a pale green cookie, half coated with chocolate. Serve it with fruit -- here, white peaches, honeydew melon, and blueberries -- for a lovely dessert that won't be out of place with your Kung Pao Chicken.

Green Tea Shortbread with Chocolate

2 c. butter
2 c. flour
2 T. Chinese powdered green tea
1/2 c. powdered sugar
3 oz. good-quality chocolate
1 T butter

Combine all the ingredients except the chocolate and butter with an electric mixer. Turn the mixture out onto a pastry sheet or a cutting board lined with parchment paper and roll out to a smooth sheet of shortbread. The mixture will be crumbly. Chill 30 minutes.
Use heart-shaped cookie cutters to cut shortbread and set carefully on a cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
Melt chocolate and butter together. Hold shortbread by a corner and dip half into chocolate. Lay cookies on parchment paper till shiny and set.

Chocolate for Men

Chocolate is the classic Valentine's Day gift for men to give to women. Women even give chocolate to one another in recognition of this sweet holiday. Women don't give chocolate to men in the same numbers -- but they should.

Turns out, chocolate is particularly good for men's health. A 15-year study of men's health found that men who ate chocolate were half as likely to die from cardiovascular disease as those who did not. The men who ate the most chocolate, in any form, had a lower death rate over the course of the study from all causes.

This was true even when researchers controlled for such variables as weight, alcohol use, smoking, and physical activity.

 

Does that chocolate gift seem too feminine? You can look for Yorkie bars -- "not for girls" is clearly emblazoned on the wrapper. These aren't sold in the U.S. We say a man should be secure enough in his masculinity to accept chocolate happily on Valentine's Day. After all, it staves off death. Can't beat that.