Bunny fun

Darina Allen on the joy of watching chicks hatch at Easter time

Such excitement at the Cookery School this week – the eggs we put into the incubator in the office 21days ago began to hatch out. First the chicks pecked through and eventually wriggled their way out of the shells.The fluffy little bundles are now thriving happily under an infra-red lamp in the Palais des Poulets.

I love hens – we've always kept poultry. One of my very earliest memories is of feeding the chickens, clutching Betty's hand tightly. I can still remember the mixture of terror and delight when the hens eagerly ran towards us. At that stage I wasn't much taller than a hen!

Here at the Cookery School we have a wonderful flock of happy, lazy hens that feed on scraps, vegetable peelings and organic feed. They roam over the grass, scratch to their hearts' content, have dust baths in the sun and lay an egg when the humour takes them. The students love them – one American chap called Doug loved to feed the hens. "They're the only appreciative females I've ever met in my entire life," he explained in his wry way.

We have a variety of breeds suitable for free-range organic production. Some lay brown speckledy eggs, others like the arucanas almost blue, so beautiful. In many countries there is a tradition of dyeing and painting eggs for Easter, but in our family our clever hens actually lay coloured eggs with childrens' names on them on Easter Sunday! The Easter Bunny makes nests all round the garden and lays chocolate eggs and baby chocolate bunnies. So after the children have eaten their very own boiled eggs for breakfast, the doors burst open and they career in wild excitement around the garden searching for the Easter Bunny's hiding places.

Easter Bunny Biscuits: Makes 25 approximately

6 oz (170g) plain white flour

4 oz (110g) butter

2 oz (55g) castor sugar

Rabbit- or chick-shaped biscuit cutter

Decoration: Icing, raisins, tiny speckled eggs

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/regulo 4. Mix the flour and castor sugar in a bowl, rub in the butter and continue to work until the mixture comes together in a firm dough. Roll into a quarter inch (6mm) thick sheet on a floured board. Stamp into bunny shapes with a cutter. Bake in the preheated moderate oven for 8 -15 minutes or until pale and golden in colour. Cool on a wire rack. Decorate with icing or chocolate eggs.