Hoppy Easter

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Here lately I've been on a cookie and cupcake kick.  Mostly because they are easier for the kids to grab and take to the table themselves.  So down the rabbit hole we go...

What you need
1 recipe of butter cream icing
1 package of malted milk eggs
6 Oreo cookies
1 tsp of edible pearls
Green color paste
Pink color paste
yellow color paste
black color paste

Bake your 24 cupcakes in green cupcake papers.
Mix your butter cream icing
3/4 cup of shorting
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbls water
2 Tbls meringue powder
1 lb powder sugar
Add water 1tsp at a time until you get the consistency you need.  I used a medium consistency.

Remove about 1Tbsp and set aside for pink, 1 for yellow and 1 for black
Remove about 4 Tbsp to keep white
Add green paste to what is left for a light green
Add the light green to one side of a pastry bag fitted with a small leaf tip, I used tip #352
Add more green to the bowl to make a darker green, fill the other side of the bag with the dark green.
I also paint a strip of green paste inside the bag to get a darker green streak when the icing flows out.





Pipe on until the cupcake is covered. Continue to pipe all but 4 cupcakes.

With the remaining 4 cupcakes ice them smooth and dip into crushed Oreo cookies.  To crush the cookies removing the filling.  No don't lick it out no matter how tempting ;-) scrape it out, then place the cookies in a ziplock bag remove the air and roll with a rolling pin until the cookies resemble dirt.

 Arrange on a tray with the holes surrounded by the green grass.  Add the Easter egg candy to the tops scattered in the grass.  To finish off color 1 Tbsp pink and the other yellow.  Add to a pastry bag fitted with a small flower tip.  I used #224.  Add small flowers over the tops of the cupcakes.

Now for those cute little bunny tails.  Humm well these gave me a little trouble.  I kept getting Oreo all over my white.  GRRRR I hate when that happens.  So finally I ended up filling the palm of my hand with the little pearls and filling the pearls with a small ball of while butter cream from a large round tip I used tip number 12 and then just kind of rolled it in the pearls and placed in the center of the Oreo covered cakes.  For the feet, I just pressed the tip a little and drew two lines from the Oreo covered to the icing covered.  With black icing I drew on the little tows and the pads.  And you're done.

Hope ya'll have a wonderful Easter.  We are looking so forward to an early church service followed by a day of hunting eggs and celebrating.

Birds Nest

OH SO EASY!


These little birds nest are just so fun and yummy.  Such a cute little Easter treat my mom started these when I was a kid, she used a little different recipe than I do.  She used cornflakes where I use rice noodles, I like the look of the rice noodles and they taste just the same. 


What you need.

And that is it.  Really that is it.

12 oz of Rice Noodles
12 oz of Butterscotch chips
and Mini eggs...I use whoppers they are just what I like but really any tiny candy egg will work

Pour your chips in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds.  Remove and stir, repeat until the chips are melted.  Butterscotch chips do not melt the same way chocolate does, they are thick and gooey.  Pour in the rice noodles and carefully stir until they are mixed.  Fill 1/4 cup with the mixture and dump on a sheet of wax paper.  It gets a little messy because you have to form the nest part with your fingers just kind of press a small indentation in the middle on the top and add your candy eggs.  Let stand for about 15 minutes before you serve.

This recipe makes about 24 nest.

Enjoy

Two for One

I LOVE recipes that allow me to make more than one thing at a time out of one bowl!  I make homemade rolls for Sunday lunches.  We have two choices for church so we go to the early one.  This gives me enough time to fix the extras to go with lunch.  Well I've discovered that I can double the roll recipe and make pull apart bread.  

Rolls
2-2 1/2 cups flour                                     
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. yeast

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup water

2 Tbsp. Margarine

Mix 3/4 cup flour, sugar, yeast and salt in large bowl.  Heat milk, water and margarine until it reaches 120 to 130 degrees.  Not boiling or you'll kill your yeast.  I heat it for about 90 seconds in the microwave.  Add to bowl and beat for 2 minutes on medium speed.  Add 1/4 cup flour.  Beat 2 minutes on high.  By the way you need a bread paddle, this will do a number on a regular mixer, I might have learned that the hard way ;-).  You must beat each for 2 minutes to activate the yeast.  Stir in the rest of the flour until it makes a stiff dough.  Knead 2-3 minutes.  Place in a greased bowl and let rise 20 minutes.  Divide dough into 12 pieces and shape into balls.  Place on cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.  Let rise 15 minutes.  Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

Now if you need a dessert, and who doesn't need a dessert...double the above recipe.

Spray your Wilton Nonstick Fluted Tube Pan.  Form the left over dough into balls.  Place around the bottom of the bundt pan.  Just place them in until the bottom is covered.  I don't make them all the same size I just kind of make balls and place them in the bottom of the pan until I get the bottom covered.  Sprinkle with about 1/3 cup of sugar,  sprinkle with cinnamon and chopped pecans.  Slice a 1/2 of a stick of butter into thin pads and place over the balls.  Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.  Let cool for about 10 minutes then dump onto a platter and serve. 

Careful this is sticky yummy

Sweet April Fools

So we started off our day with lots of April Fools.  Mother Nature pulled out all the stops with a nice little snow storm for us...Breakfast was 'Bacon and Eggs' with cereal of course being that my children will only eat cereal for breakfast.  But our bacon wasn't bacon and our eggs were not eggs and our milk changed colors when it was poured upon the cereal.  Both of these are really cute and easy idea.


To get the milk to change colors add a few drops of food coloring to the bottom of the bowl, pour the cereal over the top and add milk.  As the kids eat or stir the milk will change colors.  My boys loved it!  Miss Prissy cried and refused to eat red milk.

Eggs
White Chocolate Chips

Yellow M&M's ----you can buy a small package if you are only making a few, I bought the BIG one, can't imagine what I will have to do with all the left overs.. ;-)

Wax Paper

Bacon

1 caramel square

1 Tootsie Roll

Per piece of bacon

 

For the eggs, pour 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips in a glass microwave safe bowl.  Heat on medium high, really who knows how to change the settings on their microwave, for about 30 seconds remove and stir.  Heat until melted stirring every 15 seconds following the first round. Do not just put it in there for a minute chocolate WILL burn and YUCKY it will be! Think I've seen one too many episodes of Star Wars the week...oh the joys of having boys.

Pour the melted chocolate into a parchment paper bag or into a Ziploc.  I use parchment paper bags because I keep them on hand for my cake icings.  But this is a trick for getting hot runny chocolate into a bag without burning yourself.  Place your bag in a cup, fold the edges over the top and then just pour into it.  Zip it up and snip a SMALL corner off the bottom. 



Terrible lighting sorry

See the big mess at the top???  ignore that the bag I was using busted, you would think this was my first attempt at this...  Anywho they look all lumpy and bumpy right at first but once they sit for a few minutes they get all smooth and perfect looking.  I place mine on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

Bring home the bacon now...

On a small microwave safe plate place one half of a piece of caramel and one tootsie roll. And heat for about 5 seconds or until pliable. (glass plates work best so when you forget to check it and it melts, it wipes right off)



Not that I would do such a thing ;-)



This is what you do next, cut each candy in half and press together.  Careful if you heat them too long it hurts.



Press the two halves together again. Then work the soft candy flat till it looks like a small piece of bacon.

This is what it will look like.

And our day just kept getting trickier.

I delivered Popcorn to the kids' classrooms and the hubby's.  Well he took his in but you get the picture.

These are really mini cupcakes with marshmallows for popcorn.

Very simple, in white mini cupcake cups fill about 3/4 of the way full with any white cake mix.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden and toothpick comes out clean.

While they are cooling on a wire rack cut mini marshmallows in thirds.  You need both yellow and white marshmallows.  About 1 cup of each.  Arrange the three slices into a petal looking shape and add a drop of vanilla icing and top with a whole marshmallow.

Mix up the colors don't do them all the same.

Ice the top of the cupcakes, I did something I never only do once in a while, I used store bought can frosting. YUCK. Add about 3 sets of the marshmallows to the top of  each cupcake.  In my defense I did make 8 and 1/2 dozen cupcakes last night.  I was not going to spend the time mixing all that buttercream.

Fill a popcorn bag or bowl with paper filling and add the cupcakes till they peek out of the top.

Oh then there was dinner...I do love April Fools Day :-)

For dinner we had cupcakes and peas with spaghetti and meatballs for dessert.

Once again both are very simple.  Of course the cupcakes aren't really cupcakes.  And I so wish I had had a video of the hub's face.  I wasn't so sure I was going to get him to try them.

It is just meatloaf baked in cupcake cups.  It works best if you use the little foil cups inside a muffin tin.  And the icing is mashed potatoes with food coloring mixed in swirled on top.

The Spaghetti and Meatballs are really white cupcakes with buttercream icing piped on with a number 3 tip.

The sauce is strawberry preserves and the meatballs are Ferrero Rocher Fine Hazelnut Chocolate 5.3oz dipped in the preserves.

So needless to say we had a fun day and I hope ya'll did also.

Happy April Fool's Day!