Adorable (and yummy!) Easter Treats

By Guest Blogger Kristen Bagwell

Happy Easter everyone!  If you know me, you know that I am not a crafty person. At all. However, if there is frosting involved, I’ll try almost anything once…and with that said, I am inspired to try some adorable Easter treat ideas.

There are about 100 different (and very cute) ways to do cupcakes, many of them found here. Today’s blog photo is from my mom’s cookbook called Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. You don’t necessarily need a recipe though – most of these you can look at and copy on your own.

My one concession to “all things sweet” on Easter is a deviled egg. If you are making hard boiled eggs to decorate, you can easily boil a few extra for the recipes I’ve included at bottom. Time to get cooking (and snacking!)

The cupcake ideas are probably my favorite, and possibly the easiest to do with the kids. Top with frosting, then let the kids make nests out of edible easter grass and add candy eggs. If you want to be really simple, stick a Peep on top and call it a day. If you like coconut, frost your cupcake and then sprinkle coconut on top for a furry easter bunny face, and decorate the face accordingly. (This will make your cupcake appear to be looking up at you, which is kind of fun.) There is another photo that turns a cupcake into a sheep made almost entirely with tiny, tiny marshmellows. If anyone figures this one out, please let me know.

Here’s another fun idea that’s kind of different, or else I just need to get out more…have you ever heard of cake pops? I had not until I received my Kroger Easter special coupon booklet last week, complete with yummy recipes. One of their readers shared a cake pop recipe, which basically consists of mixing crumbled cake with frosting, molding into a ball, dipping in candy coating, and inserting a lollipop stick in the bottom. Then decorate however you want!

Egg Pops

This is the most obvious idea (and the only one I came up with on my own…lack of craftiness is showing, isn’t it?). However, I searched “Easter cake pops” online and there are tons of eggs, bunnies, sheep, and more. And how cute is this little chick? A baker named Bakerella is given credit for the creation of cake pops on every website I found. Her original recipe is  below:

Ingredients
• 1 box cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
• 1 can frosting (16 oz.)
• Wax paper
• Candy Melts (choose your favorite color)
• 1 lbs. of lollipop sticks

Instructions
1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can frosting. (I use the back of a large spoon, but it may be easier to use fingers to mix together. But, be warned, it will get messy. Also, you may not need the entire can of frosting, so start out by using almost the entire can and add more if you need to.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50)
4. Melt chocolate in the microwave per directions on package. (30 sec intervals, stirring in between.)
5. Dip the tip of your lollipop stick in a little of the melted candy coating and insert into the cake balls. (Insert a little less than halfway.)
6. Place them in the freezer for a little while to firm up.
7. Once firm, carefully insert the cake ball into the candy coating by holding the lollipop stick and rotating until covered. Once covered remove and softly tap and rotate until the excess chocolate falls off. Don’t tap too hard or the cake ball will fall off, too.
8. Place in a Styrofoam block to dry.
9. Once dry, draw faces with an edible ink pen and allow ink to dry!

If you want to decorate with sprinkles, etc, stick those on at step 8. To coat the pop entirely in sprinkles, colored sugar, etc, dip in candy coating (step 7) and then quickly roll the sticky pop in the sprinkles. Adorable and fun for the kids as well.

Here is a quick and easy Carrot snack. You can fill it with goldfish or I have also seen this done with cheese balls. You can find the little bags here.

What are some of your favorite Easter treats or dishes? Leave a comment below and inspire us!