Essential Easter Recipes from Create

Easter is a time of indulgence, and with fantastic seasonal produce to choose from it’s a great time to cook up a feast for friends and family. At Easter, we love to serve Spring lamb with a fresh salad, bursting with flavour. But don’t forget the other Easter staple: hot cross buns. Executive Chef of our award-winning catering company Create Food & Party Design, Darren Deadman, shows us how to turn them into a fantastic dessert.

Spring Neck of Lamb with Lemon and Thyme

Spring lamb is light, buttery and delicious. Lamb is always increasing in price but to make it more cost-effective you can try different cuts. Here we are using neck of lamb, which is an amazing but underused cut which, if treated well, gives a delicious dish full of flavour.

Serves Six
1 hour and 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 25 ml rapeseed oil
  • 1kg Scrag end neck fillet of lamb, off the bone
  • 15 ml of lemon juice, plus some zested lemon rind
  • 6-8 sprigs of thyme
  • 125ml of lamb stock
  • Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Method

  • Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan.
  • Add the lamb and allow it to sizzle and spit, turning occasionally until lightly browned all over.
  • Add the lemon juice, thyme and stock.
  • Season with salt and plenty of pepper.
  • Bring to the boil then turn down the heat to a gentle simmer. Place a lid on the pan.
  • Cook gently, turning the meat over occasionally, for about 20 minutes, until the meat is tender.

Serve with warm freshly baked sourdough or a good farmhouse bloomer and a plum tomato, red onion and basil salad. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can add a few crumbs of crumbled feta to the salad. This gives it a lovely seasoned taste which helps to cut through the rich and creamy lamb.

Hot Cross Bun Bread and Butter Pudding

We all love a toasted hot cross bun; what is Easter without them? If you find yourself with an excess though, you can turn them into a wonderful Easter dessert that is the perfect way to follow your lamb. This is similar to a traditional bread and butter pudding, but the addition of the hot cross bun spices really lift it to a whole new level. Well worth a try this Easter.

Serves Six
1 hour and 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 6 hot cross buns – any condition, fresh or on the verge of stale
  • 50g of butter, soft enough to spread
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 60gm of caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 200ml of milk
  • 200ml of double cream

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 170°C or gas mark 3
  • Butter an ovenproof dish
  • Slice the hot cross buns in halves and butter both sides of the bottom halves and then arrange in an oven proof dish
  • Whisk together the remaining ingredients and slowly pour half the mixture over the bottom halves, ensuring everything is covered
  • Butter the top halves of the buns, place on top of the bottom halves
  • Add a few bits of butter to make sure the tops don’t get too dark
  • Pour the rest of the mixture over the buns
  • Ideally leave to soak for about an hour before cooking to allow to soak up all the egg mixture
  • Bake for about 45 minutes or until puffy and rich dark brown
By | 2018-06-19T17:45:56+00:00 March 31st, 2017|Food and Party Design, News|