Newsletter: Celebratory bakes for Easter, and plant-based inspiration from Elavegan

Wishing you a Happy Easter!

The holidays are underway and the Easter weekend is imminent. If you are catering for a houseful and would like some breakfast ideas, take a look at our cookbook showcase for Making Breakfast or Brunch Memorable. A batch of Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes should keep everybody happy and well fuelled.

One of the joys of having little ones around is some kitchen time. Have a go at making those all-important Easter eggs yourselves with this recipe for Chocolate Eggs & Sweet Fillings. Or bake that seasonal classic: Simnel Cake, and have a slice ready for allcomers.

If you have had enough of the sweet stuff, try these individual, savory, vegetable-filled Easter Egg Pies.

And if you still haven’t decided how you want to serve your Easter Sunday lamb, take a look at these 10 Ways with Lamb.

Pictured above: Easter Egg Pies from The Thrifty Veggie by Nicola Graimes

A spotlight on Michaela Vais

Vegetarian from the age of six, Michaela Vais transitioned to fully vegan in 2011 and has not looked back. In our new author profile of Michaela Vais, she talks us through why she is such a staunch advocate for a plant-based diet, what she offers the over one million followers of her @elavegan Instagram account, and how much she loves a curry.

In her book Simple and Delicious Vegan she shares her enthusiasm for the fruit, veg, roots, legumes, nuts and seeds that make up a balanced vegan diet, and gives us a wealth of recipes to tempt. Try one of Vais’ favorites, her Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff.

For more plant-based ideas and recipes read our Author Profile: Ashley Madden.

Find 115 ideas for a vegan salad lunch

Newly published: The Organised Cook by Amelia Freer

Nutritionist and writer Amelia Freer is on a mission to give us the tools and knowledge to cook and eat for our day-to-day health, without stress.

Declutter, restock, organise, take the uncertainty and anxiety out of healthy cooking and eating with Freer’s new book The Organised Cook: The Life-Changing Way to Save Time, Shop Smarter and Eat More Healthily.

With 70 of her own recipes, we are shown how eating well every day needn’t be complicated, time-consuming, or expensive. Start your day with Lemon and Poppy Seed Granola, lunch on Easy Chickpea Pancakes, and feed the crowd One-Pan Mushroom and Leek Pasta for supper.

Ingredient spotlight: eggs

The culinary powerhouse that is the humble egg is both one of the easiest things to cook – boil or fry an egg for a near-instant meal – and one of the essentials of the complex art of patisserie. Where would the pastry chef be without the yolks for crème pâtissier, or the whites for meringues, marshmallow , macaron?

When we refer to eggs we usually mean hen’s eggs, and they are also, along with the fluffy chicks that emerge from them, a universal symbol of spring. But duck, quail and goose eggs are all worth eating.

For ideas to make a meal of an egg beyond the entirely acceptable boiled egg and soldiers, try something from our 12 Ways with Eggs collection. Try Baked Eggs with Fresh Chives or these very seductive Sexy Scrambled Eggs.

If you want more eggs, chef Grant MacPherson's book, Egg & Chicken, explores a world of possibilities of flavors with eggs (and chickens). His achievable recipes are full of playfulness and humor and captured stylishly by photographer Bill Milne.

6 of the best coffee cakes

It is National Coffee Cake Day April 7. Not that we need an excuse to bake this perennial favorite. Here are 6 recipes worth getting your wooden spoon out for.