Easter Baking!

It's always exciting for me, leading up to Easter. I realize we are still in Lent and shouldn't even be contemplating the Alleluia of Easter morning, but I can't help it. Palm/Passion Sunday this week, and I have had music from Jesus Christ Superstar stuck in my head for almost two weeks already. I really should just go downstairs and watch it, if only to get it out of my head.

Going hand in hand with Jesus Christ Superstar (a big thanks to my mother in law and Hubby for introducing it to me seven years ago) comes the baking. I come from Latvian stock, and a holiday treat that we always did, first Grandma (Dad's mom) and then my own mother, is perogs (pee-rogs). For as tasty as they are, I realize that most people have never had them, so I will tell you about them. They are a bread, sweetbread, in a crescent shape stuffed with fried bacon and onion. Now you have to get the slab bacon, not the pre-sliced stuff. You cut the bacon into little squares (or if you're like Hubby and myself into fair-sized chunks) and fry it up with the onion. Drain it off and let it cool while you prepare the dough. My parents always do the bacon the night/day before and then start the rest first thing in the morning.

When the sweetbread dough is risen, you take a little handful, flatten it like a disc, put a teaspoon (or heaping teaspoon, if you want) and then close it over, sealing it and shaping it into a crescent. Fill the cookie sheet with them, let the rise until doubled and cover with an egg wash before baking to a golden brown. They really do taste the best right out of the oven, still warm. To give you an idea of how much Hubby and I like these, I went and made a batch at Christmas and then had to make more the following week. But we reserve this treat for Christmas and Easter alone. They really are alot of work, especially when you get lots of people together, because you want everyone to have some, both to eat and to take home. There usually isn't any other cooking done that day since everyone is snacking on perogs.

The boys aren't as fond of them yet, Boy 2 LOVED them last Easter, but not as much last Christmas, so we will see as time passes how much that changes. All I know is that slab bacon is on the grocery list for Saturday so sometime in the next week we'll be making a batch or two shortly. If anyone living in the city wants to try some, give us a call, and we'll either take some to you or come on over. I love having excuses to bake!