So far this year, my baking mojo has been worryingly absent. Perhaps it is the lack of any Great British Baking to inspire me (although the Comic Relief specials were bloomin’ marvellous!) but mostly, it’s a lack of time related to spending weekends buried in a keyboard. Thankfully, it’s starting to come back to me now so that I spent a bit of time perusing various recipes and opting for a reasonably simple bake to ease me back in gently.

Of note, I finally got round to sorting out my baking cupboard. I took inventory of the ingredients therein (literally making a note of what was there and when it expires). I can’t see myself keeping that up to date, but what I did do whilst I was taking everything out of the cupboard and cataloguing it, was organise. I now have a flour shelf, a sugar shelf and an other shelf. A sugar shelf! Madness.

Anyway, lots of recipes are emerging for Easter baked goodies - I particularly enjoyed looking at the Easter Egg recipes. It has never occurred to me that you could make your own easter egg. Granted, you need some kind of big ol’ mould but that’s what baking shops are for. I decided to go for something a little bit easier, and found this recipe for hot cross cookies.

An interesting take on the more famous buns, these cookies feature sultanas and white chocolate in abundance. Well, they should. Having just sorted out my baking cupboard, I realised I had all the ingredients to go in this, except I would have to substitute sultanas for mixed fruit and white choc chips for milk chocolate instead. Not bad going. I was also missing any chocolate to make the cross on top, but hey ho.

They were really delicious. More crumbly and shortbready than your traditional cookie - mine were quite thick in the middle, but I was proud of the uniformity of them. Not Paul Hollywood standards, but considering my normal presentation skills, this was good. The cinnamon is a little bit overwhelming, but then you’re surprised with the mixture of fruit along with chocolate, and it makes for an eclectic but quite yummy biscuit. Not something I would make time and again, but a nice change from the norm.