Easter

Easter is Just around the corner and I did some things just for fun! Hopefully they will be enjoyed on Easter day by some family and friends!!

I know my son is looking forward to filling HIS own Easter basket much fuller than these!


What is Easter without a few carrots, right?
The chickens were inspired by Kava Dolce on Flickr.
The Tweek cookie I found here.
One of my favorites, Sugarbelle, made these very cool bunny rabbits that I found here.

Happy Baking.
Jen

Easter Treats

Easter was a good excuse for me to make some fun things I hadn't had the chance to try before. It seems I like to add more and more the day before the event!

Started off with Feather-Light Breakfast Puffs from a cookbook I have called Just Like Mom Made. VERY easy to make and they were a hit. Almost like cinnamon rolls.


This was a last minute addition to my desserts for Easter - a Blackberry Custard Torte from Taste of Home. As you can see these are NOT blackberries! I used raspberries and cranberries instead. This was very easy to make!

Too bad not many people ate this - it was yummy and a recipe I would make again!
Showing off my creation.

Graham Cracker and Almond Crust with Cheesecake filling made to look like Egg's nest with coconut and jelly bean toppings. This was the 2nd attempt for these. The first ones the crust didn't do what I wanted and wasn't actually able to make them like nests - more just like flat cookies. Got to thinking I wanted to attempt them again and luckily I had all the ingredients!

I had my little helper here with this dessert...putting the coconut and jelly beans on. It went something like this 1 jelly bean for the dessert, 2 for Trevor, 1 for dessert, 2 for Trevor. Cake Balls/Pops are all the craze right now. So of course I had to try them. Bakerella has made these famous and they are gorgeous. I am definitely going to have to try my hand at these again because they did NOT turn out how I envisioned. Now it's my mission! You start out with a cake - and I found a wonderful recipe from The Pioneer Woman . I would use this recipe again. The chocolate cake was so soft and came out perfectly from my pans. Too bad I wasn't going to make a cake out of them!


You actually mash the entire cake up!!! Put it in a bowl and mix with the frosting. Mix that all up until it disappears.

Then you roll them into balls. I wanted to make Easter eggs so tried that. Bakerella puts them on cookie sticks and maybe that is why mine didn't work well....But this recipe made 65 balls!! OH MY. Next time I will have to use 1/2 the recipe. Up until now this was pretty easy to do. Lots of steps but not hard. After rolling the balls you stick them in the freezer. Even over night because you want them to be nice and solid before the next step which is to roll them in chocolate. That was where I went wrong. I've never been to good at dipping in chocolate and this time was no exception. I used every stitch of chocolate I had in my house!!! And they didn't come out very nicely. Too goopy with chocolate....darn it! And it wasn't even easy for me to get the sprinkles on. I had wanted to make colored Easter eggs...but when I tried to add my color to the white chocolate on one batch - it immediately turned hard and wasn't liquid again?!! Huh? Not sure what the heck happened. Any ideas there? So there went my egg colors. But because this made so much we had white, dark and milk chocolate balls. I need to have a tutor help me with these next time!


Here is the platter I took to Easter. My cookies of course were there too!


And let's not forget Snickerdoodles! Dad's favorite and Trevor and I got an itching to bake! Turned out not too bad although I did made the balls a little too big and they expanded more than I thought...oh well.
Trevor was really my helper with these cookies! He's getting more into the baking with me! He cut up the butter for me with his own little knife (a butter knife and don't worry, I was right there making sure he was being safe!)
Then he did a great job of rolling the cookie balls in the cinnamon and sugar mix. He didn't lose interest at all and rolled all the cookies for me!


And then guess what? He wanted to clean up! Yes, Trevor voluntarily said he wanted to clean the bowls. Go for it Trevor! You are a big helper!


As you can see we were busy baking!!!!
Hope you had a great Easter!

Bunny Ear Topper Cupcakes

I was inspired again by The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle and had to try these very cool cupcakes. A lot of work and pre-planning but I couldn't resist especially since it also involved cookies!

The first step - making bunny ear toppers. Not too hard and was able to make these ahead of time. I'm not that fond of making cupcakes since they require the night before prep....I prefer to be able to do things in advance.

To be a topper I put a little icing on the back of the cookie and iced a popsicle stick to them. Next step was baking the Yummy, Yummy chocolate cupcakes. Nice and rich. I used a recipe I got from the back of my Hello, Cupcake book by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson. It's a fabulous book and I would recommend it to anyone! Some good recipes in the back and lots of fun cupcake ideas in them. They have a very cool blog too. This the book that my parents gave me that actually got me into baking! I used the cupcake frosting recipe out of the same book...boy, I remember why I don't make cupcakes too much! Cupcake frosting is so messy and so buttery! Wow. 3 sticks of butter. When cleaning up butter doesn't want to come off - all over my counter, my hands, my supplies. For me cupcake frosting is much harder to work with than cookie icing. But I think my Bunny Rabbits turned out pretty cute. After putting the frosting on I put the bunny ear toppers in the cupcakes, added eyes and a nose. I hand cut out the cupcake wraps. Last but not least - added bunny tails to the back! Then I packaged them up for Trevor's school friends so each classmate could take a cupcake home as a special treat.

HIPPITY HOPPITY LOOK AT EASTER COME!


HAPPY EASTER

Here comes Peter Cotton Tail! Happy Easter Cookies

Happy Spring, Happy Easter! Here are the Easter cookies I've been working on. I just wish the weather would be a bit more Spring like here in Kansas City! Spring colors make you want to get outdoors!


My larger butterfly turned out a little lopsided. Not sure what happened to the shape when I baked it! Opps!
I thought the chicks coming out of their egg shells was a cute idea. I found them on Esty.com. They were fun and easy to make. I've had a bit of trouble with my icing lately so had to improvise and fix them a bit - but to the untrained "cookie" eye, you would never know! The funny thing about baking and decorating - each batch is entirely different and I always just hope they turn out for the best. Your icing or decorations can easily go hay wire!
Tried to get a bit creative with the flowers here. I like the colors but not really sure I like the decorating as much.
Some new basket cookie cutters that I thought were really fun and different. They took a bit of time but I"m really pleased with how they turned out.

We can't forget bunnies of all shapes and sizes for Easter!



Have a great day! Happy Baking. I've already been up a few hours working on my next batch of cookies!