Making a Bread Chicken

Our Easter traditions always start the Sunday before, Palm Sunday. When the children were younger they would each make a cockerel out of bread dough and then stick it on top of a wooden cross which had been decorated with streamers and strings of sweets and raisins. Then on the afternoon of Palm Sunday we would beat the bounds, carrying our crosses and singing songs. This was to commemorate the multitude which came out of Jerusalem to greet Jesus on Palm Sunday. The wooden cross hidden with streamers and sweet treats, was to show how quickly the sweet words of the crowd would turn to the starkness of the Cross on Good Friday.

Now our children are either grown up or a teenager they still like to mark the tradition but in a quieter way. So I shall be making a bread cockerel today to have for tea tomorrow and we'll go on a walk around the bounds, but not with the little children !

If you would like to make your own bread cockerel then just make up your usual white bread dough recipe and shape it into a long U shape. Details can then be added using raisins, kitchen scissors or small bits of dough which you can stick on the main dough with an egg wash. I'll make a hollow for the egg to sit in so that I can add an decorated egg once the cockerel comes out of the oven.

Good luck with your Easter planning and baking !