My Eggcellent Easter!

April 15, 2011

This Sunday, April 17^th, I hope you will tune in to Hallmark Channel at 7 p.m. ET to watch my Easter special called Martha’s Eggcellent Easter. On this joyous show, we’ll be celebrating Easter’s most prominent symbol – the incredible egg. I’ll be sharing delicious and festive recipes, such as meringue and puff pastry eggs, coconut nest cupcakes, and homemade marshmallow peeps. You’ll learn special decorating techniques for speckled, stickered, and glittered eggs. We’ll also visit our friends at The Ukrainian Museum and Library and the St. Basil Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut to learn about traditional Ukrainian Easter customs. Here’s a little preview of some behind-the-scenes of creating this special. Please watch and let me know what you think! Here is some more info about the special!

: I was sure to bring plenty of fresh eggs for this baking segment.

: The kitchen staff mixing the yeast dough for Ukrainian paska

: Here I am with Elizabeth Gardasz and Lubow Wolynetz in the kitchen of the Saint Basil Seminary with the beautiful paska dough.

: Elizabeth showed me how to twist paska dough to form the decorations.

: This basket lined with a traditional Ukrainian embroidered cloth if filled with symbolic foods of Easter ready to be blessed, including kielbasa, horseradish root, beet and horseradish condiment, flavored butter, babka, Pysanky eggs, and the paska.

: The decorations adorn the tops of the breads. They are held in place with wooden skewers during baking.

: The finished breads are shiny and fantastic looking!

: The paskas have a beautiful texture and a slightly sweet flavor.

: We also taped at the Ukrainian Museum and Library in Stamford CT.

: A lovely flower arrangement along with pysanky – Ukrainian decorated eggs

: These cakes are the babkas.

: A compote of naval oranges, cara cara oranges, and blood oranges

: A platter of sliced kielbasa and an apricot mustard-glazed ham

: Kopykake printed these edible images from vintage cards that we sent them.

: These lovely speckled eggs are resting in a pussy willow nest.

: And this egg is upon selaginella greenery.

: Nico found the golden egg and was very excited!

: Sweet Penelope

: Anna is happy with her find

: All of the children were given wonderful baskets, including a sweet Steiff bunny.

: Part of our Easter special was shot at the New York Botanical Gardens. We invited several children to take part in an egg hunt. We also invited the Easter Bunny, of course!

: The timing was perfect for this Easter shoot because NYBG’s fabulous and colorful orchid had just opened.

: Here I am admiring the dessert table.

: And if that wasn’t enough sweets, there was also a candy table!

: Homemade marshmallo peeps and bunnies, coconut nest cupcakes, and a bunny cake – The natural moss was decorated with little toadstools for a craft store.

: Another faux bois dessert table

: The cookie table

: Kim Miller – VP and Executive Producer of the special discuss the next scene.

: The children were thrilled to have an early Easter.

: A closeup of the peeps, which were decorated with yellow sanding sugar

: Egg-shaped puff pastry with filled with lemon curd

: Tartletts filled with pastry creme and topped with candied kumquat slices

: Meringue eggs filled with orange curd

: The iced cookies were made by sweetdanib.com/

: These sugar cookies are decorated with edible images printed by kopykake.com.

: These cute paper candy cups came from vikingimporting.com

: These beautiful lollipops came from Vintage Confections – http://www.vintageconfections.com/, Candy.com – http://www.candy.com/, and Sweet Lollipop Shop – http://www.sweetlollipopshop.com/prestashop/.

: Malted milk eggs

: Candy-coated almonds

: Pink Jelly Bellies

: And orange ones, too

: An exquisite chocolate bunny from Conrad’s Confectionery http://conradsconfectionery.com/

: Eric Pike – our EVP Creative Director – oversees everything holiday in the company.

: This enormous ‘chandelier’ was composed of beautiful orchids.

: Fortunately, it was a beautiful sunny day. This is the outside of the conservatory.

: Another part of the special was taped in my TV studio. My niece, Kristina Christiansen enters the set.

: Francesca and Sharkey had a lot of fun! The pink paint is a toned down Martha Stewart Home Depot color – One-part Peony mixed with two-parts white.