April 1st 500 grams of flour 250 grams of butter 150 grams of powder sugar 3 egg yolks Mix the flour and butter until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs Mix in the sugar and egg yolks until you have a dough. If it is too dry, add a little cream. Wrap up in cellophane, refrigerate for about an hour. This is your pie and cookie dough. Roll it out thin, and be careful that it doesn't burn in the oven. And let the crusts cool before you take them out of the pans and pour in the filling. The filling is chocolate, and you're on your own there- it's a matter of preference. The general rule is to sit a pot inside a saucepan of simmering water, and melt down a combination of dark and milk chocolate. You can add nutella, you can add fudge spread- just be careful that it doesn't get too hot and start clumping. Pour it into the pie crusts, shake them gently to spread it evenly. And then start decorating. For the above I used mini choux, green pumpkin seeds, almonds, milk dragees, and a cookie. Done? Congratulations, you have just made a traditional Polish Easter cake, the mazurek. But you can't eat any of it until after the Resurrection!

Trying my hand at decorating eggs using watercolours. I started back at watercolour painting and thought since we have to decorate eggs for Easter, why not try painting free hand? This is from one of my photos of Toronto in the evening - I am sure and (I hope) you recognize that it is the C.N. Tower here. For Easter we participate in an Italian - probably Sicilian in origin, tradition called Trutsa, in which the youngest in the group goes against the eldest. You can hold your egg with either the pointed or rounded end up.The objective is to crack the other person's egg with yours - hopefully it's not yours that gets cracked. All members of the family participate with their own decorated eggs, and we crack away till we have only one egg left. The winner receives a trophy with, of course a bunny on top! I think this egg will be for show - ain't nobody is going to crack this one! So I'll have to do some more eggs.