My mom may have abandoned it but I keep the tradition of orange bunny rolls alive! I don't have her recipe so I had to find one, but that wasn't too hard. I found a nice one in my well used 1963 copy of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Here is my own interpretation on that recipe.
I assembled the ingredients and put them together in a sponge variation. That means I used half the flour, all the liquids and none of the salt to let the yeast hang out and propogate vigorously. I also reserved the orange juice for later because I thought the acidity might throw the yeast off. Here is team sponge:
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tbl grated orange zest
2 cups flour
We had a surprising cold snap on Friday so I just let it sit on my counter overnight till Saturday. The sponge wasn't catching a rise for some reason so I added the rest of the flour and the orange juice and let it sit all day Saturday and catch a good rise. Second string:
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup orange juice
Over the course of the day it caught a good rise so I added 6 tbl room temperature butter in installments while kneading, then turned it over to my Kitchenaid for a good 10 minutes of kneading. I then divided the dough into 12 portions, rolled them into 12" long snakes and formed them into bunnies! The rolls sat in the fridge overnight to be pulled out the next morning for the final rise and 10 minutes of baking in a 400d oven.
Finally I whipped up some orange glaze with 1 1/2 tbl orange juice and 3/4 cup powdered sugar, applying while the rolls were very hot. It was a big hit and Margaret was so impressed with the bunny shapes that she's requested I do this every Easter into eternity.
For dinner we had some ham and pea salad, but those were nowhere near as fun as bunny rolls. Margaret later asked me what I liked most about the bunny rolls. After a moments thought I replied "Remembering all the times before when we had them for breakfast." So practice your bunny forms with some clay and be ready to start your own tradition next Easter!
