Easter eggs

While you are making this yammiiii mushroom terrine appetizer for a meatless Friday before Easter, there is nothing better to do than blow your eggs and use the shells for the most natural eye candy that will cheer up your soul.
The old Hungarian tradition calls for colored eggs and flowers to be given away on Easter Monday to gentleman who come to will pour a bucket of water on you, because that's what will make you grow and flourish in the next year.
Nowadays, they spray their horrible patchouli all over your hair and clothes..
How stupid is that? :D
You cook, dress, clean, and make all those nice Easter eggs, and what you get in exchange?? Washing your hair like 4-5 times during the day, to avoid fainting from the smell of the lovely perfume mixes..

This year I do not expect anybody to honor the tradition, Monday is not even a holiday here, what a  pity, but we will definitely decorate the house and feel festive at least the day before, on Easter Sunday.

Some of the decorations will be these eggs, provided by our beautiful hens as they are: naturally colored in green, olive, chocolate brown, cream, white and pink.

There is nothing easier than making these "colored" eggs: blow out the eggs and just crack some open, rinse and microwave the shells to sanitize them, and match the colors.
I found the lighter olive to work best with the dark chocolate egg, and the dark olive to have the best contrast with the blue Ameraucana egg.
I chose not to make any particular pattern, but feel free to get creative and glue hearts, and what pleases you on the eggs.
I used Elmer's glue all glue, and it worked perfect.
In addition, I also plan to rinse the egg's inside, and outside with a mix of 50% water - 50% Mod Podge, to make them more resistant to breakage.
They can be hanged on branches for a beautiful table centerpiece, or just placed in a neutral colored bowl or weaved basket. I'd go for a light weaved basket to emphasize the eggs natural beauty.
Happy Easter!

Edible piparkakku gift box or "cake"

The piparkakku seems to be everybody's favorite. The teacher talked about the piparkakku house for weeks after she eventually ate them :).
Today was her birthday, so we baked, and glued, and decorated, and I thought I'm going to share some home made present tips, for piparkakku lovers.
It is a lovely surprise "cake" for those who don't like creamy stuff, and it is long lasting too, so you can prepare it well in advance.
At school all the kids thought it is a cake and were looking forward to be cut and shared :).

Ingredients
Prepare the dough from piparkakku recipe. You need about 1.5 times portion. If you bake double, you'll have some cookies as well to put in the box.
Take two sheets of white paper, draw the template and cut out the pieces of the house .
You'll nee three sizes of rectangles:
- bottom and top: 16 cm x 24 cm, times two
- side walls: 8 cm x 14.5 cm, times two
- back and front walls: 8 cm x 24 cm, times two
- 4 small bars, two shorter ones that fit the short edges, and two longer ones that fit the longer edges of the top

Assembling 
1/3 - 1/2 cup sugar, for gluing them together with caramelized, hot sugar.

Roll out the dough about 4 mm thick. Use parchment paper on top and beneath to make your life easier.

Bake the shapes, adjust the edges while hot, if needed, by placing the paper templates on top of the cookie and cutting them around quickly before the cake hardens. 
Decorate with icing, and let them dry overnight.

Heat the 1/3-1/2 cup sugar, let it melt and caramelize until gets some light golden color. Reduce the heat, and start gluing the sides. I had to use a spoon to pour melted sugar along the lines where I needed to glue the parts together because I didn't find a large enough bowl to dip the part's edges in it.
If you have larger bowls and want to use those to dip the walls in the caramel and glue them right away, you might need to melt more sugar.
Glue first the two longer side walls perpendicular to the bottom. Hold them for ~30 seconds straight, don't shake or move them unless you have to, and if you have to, do it VERY fast right after you placed them on the bottom part, because the sugar will harden immediately.
Next the two smaller side will go in between the two longer ones. Try them on first before dipping them, or pouring any sugar anywhere.
I placed them first neatly in, and only then poured sugar from the top and inside to glue them together with the bottom and the side walls.
They might not fit perfectly, in that case use a bread knife to "saw" tiny parts off. They will be maximum 1-2 mm, so you really need to SAW them, rather than start cutting, or you'll brake the pieces.

Measure the thickness of the walls, and on the BACK side of the top cover  glue the four bars, leaving a space about the size of the walls between the bars and the edge of the box top.
I forgot to take a picture of the back side of the top, so I made you an image. The bars are same thickness, I just had issues adjusting it to look exactly the same in the pic. The bars are needed to stop the top from sliding off the box.
You can also glue small bars to make corners. Just have something to stop the top sliding.

I can promise, it's going to be a BIG hit :).

Icing

The icing used for decoration will most likely pop up here and there, so I thought I will just dedicate a whole post to it..

Icing
1 egg white
200 g icing sugar
1 tsp vinegar - optional, makes the icing more shiny
food coloring
2 flat tbsp of food starch - needed only if you want more professional looking cookies, of course healthier without

Beat the egg whites with the sugar and vinegar, adding the sugar gradually. When you have a nice and pure white texture add the food coloring and food starch.
If you use it for decorating with thin lines, it is going to dry in a matter of hours. If you decide to coat a surface with the icing, let it dry overnight before adding further decorations on top or packing it.