La Semana Santa
La Semana Santa in Mexico is the week of religious holidays ending with Easter Sunday. It's a very important time in the religious calendar marked by pageantry, traditional rituals, taking the huge beautiful saints and carvings of Christ from the church and parading them around the town streets, special foods (like capirotada and bacalao) traditional artisanal candies and in indigenous rural areas, public pageant plays with masked dancers. For many, it's a time of vacation, family reunions and festivities.
The American Easter bunny has yet to give serious competition to the traditional activities in Mexico. It's interesting to note that our beloved sugar skulls from Day of the Dead take their origin directly from the handmade sugar art made in Palermo, Italy in the 14th Century. Church records indicate that side altars were adorned with little lambs and angels made from sugar as special Easter decorations.
I got the creative urge to come up with my own rendition of panoramic eggs using a Day of the Dead theme. They are a challenge to make but lots of fun and they turned out very impressive! When the Easter bunny comes to my house to hide eggs and leave marshmallow chicks, he may just shake his head and keep going.
Celebrate Spring and Enjoy!
Angela Villalba
Steps for making Panoramic Sugar Eggs
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| Buy a 2-piece egg mold. Use our sugar skull mix recipe adding an additional 1 Tbs meringue powder per batch. A 5-pound batch with 5 Tbs meringue powder is recommended and will yield 4 eggs. | Pack sugar mix tight into egg molds and turn out to dry. Hollow out in a couple hours leaving a very thin wall. (The extra tablespoon of meringue powder was added to the sugar mix for strength.) | If you're only making a couple eggs, leave egg in the mold where you can scoop out more and leave a much thinner wall. Scoop while wet. Let dry in the mold. |
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| Thin walled eggs allow more light to enter and illuminate the interior scene. Before the egg dries, use a spoon to create the peep hole. A 1 1/4" diameter a hole is recommended. *Sugar mixture and icing directions are printed on every sugar skull mold we sell. | Glue the egg top together with royal icing and continue to decorate. |
Decorate your eggs with bright Mexican colored royal icing. Be creative & have fun. Insert photographs, trinkets or any mini item that you can plop down in a blop of icing. They dry super hard and will last many years! I love the look of the mini handmade paper roses from Mexico.
Great gifts for all your Day of the Dead loving friends!