Eggtastic

Hello all and apologies for the gap in posts. As you know I was in Milan for Easter but then was sick at the end of last week and could hardly lift my head off the pillow let alone come up with some bon mots concerning cakes and cardies! But all better now and ready to tell all about Easter egg making, fab food and rain. I have to take my hat off to my sister-in-law in who's house we were staying. She was feeding 6 adults and 4 children for the whole weekend and we never went hungry for good home cooking let me tell you. But a special mention has to be made of the Chocolate Fondant that she made on the Saturday evening, it was a triumph. If it had been on Masterchef Greg would have been in Dessert Heaven (I did butter and coat the moulds in cocoa so I feel I added a little to it, not much but you know....). I have a lot to live up to and we shall see this weekend, it's Chocolate Fondant weekend, at last. We went out for Easter Sunday lunch to a farmhouse in the foothills of the area near where we were staying. It was a beautiful old Italian farmhouse where they grow and raise everything that they serve. There isn't a menu, they just keep bringing food, more food and more food. There were four antipasti, two primi's (pasta and risotto) two secondi's, all sooo tasty. Then they brought a bottle of sweet wine (yum, I brought one back) and some biscuits and we tucked in thinking that was it, there couldn't be any more, could there? Oh yes there could! Just as I was tucking into my third (I know....I thought that was it!) biscuit they brought out bowls with a traditional Easter cake (Colombo, a sort of brioche baked in the shape of a dove with great big sugar crystals on top) with a chocolate orange sauce. I don't know where we found the room but all the bowls were emptied. And all this for very little, great value and lovely people and what else can you do when it's raining gatti e cani.
So on Saturday afternoon (it was raining) we decided it was time to make the Easter eggs. I had a mould for each of my nieces (two) and nephews (two), chocolate and brushes to paint on the chocolate. Everyone was very excited so with the chocolate melted we started. My nieces remained excited throughout and did a great job, they couldn't wait for each layer to set so they could do the next. My nephews managed to do the first layer and maybe the second but then the call of the toy car was too much and their fathers finished off their eggs instead (their mothers were sensibly lying down or reading). We finished them and I then sent them off so I could fill them with secret gifts and stick them together and parcel them ready for the Easter egg hunt the next morning. And the egg hunt was lots of fun and many eggs were found and opened, Italian (and French) Easter eggs are very different from our English eggs, these were basically giant Kinder eggs. It was great to watch the wide-eyed manic opening of the eggs, by any means necessary, there were no prisoners taken!
So all in all a great weekend and again thanks to my sister-in-law, a brave lady indeed.