Fishing for Easter eggs...wacky lemon curd chicken cakes

Take a fairy cake, add a marzipan head and beak and hold
a 'hen party' for your friends this Easter.

Lemon curd 

(for gluing on the wings)

125 g (4 oz) butter in cubes

250 g (8 oz) sugar

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

4 egg yolks

Put the butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice together in a bowl that fits on top of a saucepan of simmering water. Not too much hot water  - but not too little either. Stir until everything melts and then beat until smooth. Continue beating as you add the egg yolks and just keep beating and beating until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Don't worry, it gets a bit thicker in the fridge when it cools. 

Sponge cake 

(based on Miller Howe recipe)

Preheat the oven to 180^oC/350^oF
250 g butter
4 eggs, beaten (free-range or your chicken cakes will come back to haunt you :o)
250 g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
finely grated zest of 2 oranges (we used clementines that needed eating up)
juice of one orange (or clementine)
juice of one lemon

Cream together the sugar and butter in a big bowl until light, fluffy and almost white. Beat in the eggs a little at a time. Fold in the sifted flour and then add the citurs juices and zest. Don't worry. Our mixture looked all odd at this point - kind of separated but I thought 'I'm not wasting all that' so we put it muffin cases, cooked it anyway and it got its act together in the oven and came out lovely! Wait until they are springy to the touch and resist the urge to keep opening the oven door to look at them or they'll flop.

We threaded mini liquorice allsorts onto long red liquorice 'shoe laces' to make chicken legs using a kebab skewer. It was actually very fiddly and we decided they looked just as good without. 

First you make the sponge buns in muffin cases. Then you slice the top off,
like you do with fairy cakes, cut the circle in half and use lemon curd to stick the
halves on at angles to make wings. If your cakes don't rise awfully high, then
just cut another cake in half to make two sets of wings (like we did;o) 

Now take a lump of marzipan and mould it into a head and neck.
Add whatever sweets for eyes, beak and comb you fancy
and stick the head and legs on in front of the wings.

Cool chick with beak and Beats.

I wouldn't want to meet these chickens on a dark night. But they were surprisingly tasty.
Finger-licking good, in fact!

Fishing for Easter eggs - how to make a 'gækkebrev'

Chocolate is a great incentive for getting creative

You'll need some paper, a pair of small scissors and it's a snip!

Fold the paper and cut shapes out along the fold line...zippety, snip!

This one has organic curves, squiggles and hearts.
Backed with blue tissue paper, it looked quite dramatic taped against the window.

The next one had sideways slits cut along the middle fold line.
These were then bent back to add some texture. 

It looked good against Easter green paper.

Traditionally, these letters had a snow drop flower (vintergæk in Danish)
inside them. But we think it's sad for the flower.
You could make a flower or draw one instead if you like.

What next?

When you've made your own pretty letter, it's time to make up a poem.
We came up with this one...

Gækkebrev poem

Roses are red, Violets are blue

My name is written with dots for you

Guess it right? No egg in sight

You hold onto your chocolate tight 

But if your guess is incorrect

I'll get an Easter egg, I expect!  

But I'm sure you can do better! Now count the number of letters in your first name 

and sign the letter with that number of dots. Post it off and wait for a call.

If you don't hear anything, you can claim your Easter egg!

Have fun

.....

The grand opening of the new National Aquarium

My friend Jane and I were lucky enough to be given a 'sneak preview' grand personal tour of the stunning new National Aquarium Denmark. And are some photos of our visit and a few of the 20,000 fish and other marine animals you will be able to see...including what looks like an underwater camel (above)

Anders Kofoed was kind enough to show us
how  visitors will be able to get friendly
with crabs,

lumpfish...
...and plenty more besides.

Ooh it tickles!

Jane gets suckered into shaking hands with a lovely Pacific octopus.
Naturally, this won't be part of the entertainment on offer to the 700,000
visitors expected every year. Despite having eight arms,
the poor octopus would get tuckered out in no time.

But the behind-the-scenes guided tours five times a day
will take you past the tank to say hello.

And here is Jane, waving to a diver who was cleaning the Ocean Tank, which is big enough to hold 40 buses! She's standing in the transparent tunnel that leads right through the tank so that you can see hammerhead sharks, sting rays and shoals of other fish all around you. Don't worry, as you can see by the 'white line' in the photo, the acrylic tunnel is thick enough to hold  the 4 million litres of water in this huge tank so you don't get wet feet.

Compare the two pictures above....Can you spot the difference?

We were the first visitors to walk across the glass
floor after the protective covering was removed. And we didn't break it!

Photo: Per Fløng

A sea lion. Ultimately they will be fed outside in 

nice hot weather (if we ever get any here in Denmark).

Photo: Per Fløng

Our friend the Pacific Octopus.

Photo: 3XN

This is the National Aquarium building designed by 3XN to resemble a whirlpool.

Plenty of room to grow for this lucky shark!

Spot the leafy sea dragons

Follow the swallow...

...for a happy helping of song and music at Anemone Theatret, where they say you don't have to be good at Danish to enjoy the show.

I Svalens Fodspor (In the Swallow's Footsteps) is for 3-8-year-olds who'd like to see Trolderose and Tommelise set off on an adventure that takes them through the land of the sun, moon and animals before ending up in sleepyland where their friendship is put to the test.

Showing from 4-20 April. Prices and times at: www.anemoneteatret.dk

Rock on... with a poem or two

Here's a poem about a rocking horse called Neddy and his friends Fred and Ted. It's one of a whole alphabet that I wrote a long time ago to accompany the lovely illustrations in Sunna Blædel's 'Bamserne's ABC' (Teddies' ABC). It seems a pity they only got read to my own children. So here goes...

F is for frolicking,
fun and good friends,
Rocking horse racing,
Look out for the bends,

Gee up, Old Neddy.
Fred, Ted, hold on tight,
We'll be rocking and riding
far into the night.

Faster and faster,
Just tug on his ears.
And the best thing of all?
You don't have to change gears!

And here's Jake's favourite about a goose named Harry who belongs to a snowy white teddy called Hannah:

H is for happily honking Harry,
He's honking because he wants a carry,
But Hannah's dress is lacy and white,
And goosey footprints wouldn't look right.
So she'll give him his supper and sing him a song,
Plug up your ears 'cos he sings along!

If someone out there knows a friendly publisher, you may one day get to see the lovely pictures too. In the meantime, you are welcome to draw your own illustrations and pin them up.

Have fun!

Rock on... with more loony runes (check the previous post for the runic alphabet)

1. Who is Halfgrim the Viking’s favourite British football player?

2. Which American football team does Halfgrim support?

3. Why does Halfgrim the Viking look forward to  weekends?
Because he likes going...

Don't worry, it won't be long before the next column
comes out just before Easter - and that will be...

...a whole new kettle of fish!  

Rock on...with Iron Age runes

This is the Iron Age alphabet in runes.
As you can see, Watson the Dog sat on it. Sorry.
Seriously, though, not all the letters of our alphabet are there (not Watson's fault).
But as the Iron Age alphabet had some extras, you can either use those instead
or make up some runes of your own to fill in the blanks.
Norse, or Viking, runes came later.


And here are some silly jokes to get you started...

What do Halfgrim the Viking and  Coco the Clown have in common?

Why did Halfgrim the Viking call a nanny? Because he wanted to date a...

Why did Halfgrim the Viking bet his friend would win the Grand National? 

Because he said he was...