Easter treats!

[Angie CupcakeQueen]

I love Easter. Like most years I’m going to bake some Easter treats for our family get together.
Every year my sister hosts an Easter Egg Hunt. While the kids are picking up sticks out of the front yard the adults are hiding eggs in the back yard. It’s a lot of fun.
We have lunch after the hunt as well as dessert which is where I come in.
This year I’m making Easter Carrot Patch brownies. I saw it on Pinterest and knew my nieces and nephews would love them. If you haven’t seen them it’s brownies with chocolate frosting on top then sprinkled with crushed Oreos. On top of the entire thing are orange colored white chocolate covered strawberries, candy covered tootsie roll eggs (or jelly beans or other various egg shaped candy) and some peeps. The kids will love it and will never know that the brownies are made with black beans. Lol.
Along with that I’m making some rice crispy treats and Fruit salad.
This Easter the only cake I’m doing is a birthday cake for my ex brother-in-law.
I’ve got a lot to get done this week but I’m feeling good about it!
Happy Easter!

 

[Becky]

I've never heard of carrot patch brownies but I just had a Google and they look great! The orange chocolate covered strawberries are a fantastic idea I haven't tried black bean brownies before, which recipe do you use?

I don't currently have any Easter baking planned - not sure how I allowed that to happen!! We're seeing friends on Saturday, it has become our tradition to get together and eat a lot of cheese. We call it 'Cheester'! I should probably bake something to take along, it'll probably be something vegan to accommodate the various diets and allergies. I'm thinking perhaps lemon drizzle cake - not exactly traditional, but we won't want anything heavy after all the cheese!

I also quite fancy baking a Simnel cake at some point, but I just don't think I'll find an opportunity to do it this year.

 

[Angie CupcakeQueen]

I've never heard of carrot patch brownies but I just had a Google and they look great! The orange chocolate covered strawberries are a fantastic idea I haven't tried black bean brownies before, which recipe do you use?

I don't currently have any Easter baking planned - not sure how I allowed that to happen!! We're seeing friends on Saturday, it has become our tradition to get together and eat a lot of cheese. We call it 'Cheester'! I should probably bake something to take along, it'll probably be something vegan to accommodate the various diets and allergies. I'm thinking perhaps lemon drizzle cake - not exactly traditional, but we won't want anything heavy after all the cheese!

I also quite fancy baking a Simnel cake at some point, but I just don't think I'll find an opportunity to do it this year.

Okay confession time! I’ve tried over the years to make brownies from scratch and they never turn out right.
There either dry or bitter or just wrong.
I’ve taken to using Duncan Hines brownie mix. It comes out great every time and sometimes I add things to the batter to spice it up a bit. Whether is more chocolate or coconut or other thing like that.
The black bean brownies are something new I tried. I wanted to eat a brownie without feeling guilty.

The recipe is really easy.

1 box brownie mix (around 18 oz size box)
1/2 cup black beans rinsed and drained
1/2 cup water

I put the water and black beans in a blender. The mixture is pretty watery but as long as the beans are blended in with the water it’s fine.
All I do is add that to the brownie mix. I add some semi sweet chocolate chips at the end and bake it at 350 degrees for 21 minutes.

These brownies don’t bake like a normal brownie would. They are kinda soft and don’t set up like they would with a regular brownie recipe but they are really good.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I love the kids pick up sticks to keep them distracted while the eggs are hidden. These are the things that become cherished family traditions.

Now that my kids are grown we really don’t do any thing for Easter. But this year a close friend is hosting an egg dying luncheon. She has three or four different egg dying techniques that were going to use. My younger sister is baking sugar cut out cookies for us to decorate there as well.

So I’ll be baking a gluten free roasted vegetable and goat cheese tart; biscotti; and some type of dessert.

 

[Becky]

Okay confession time! I’ve tried over the years to make brownies from scratch and they never turn out right.
There either dry or bitter or just wrong.

I know what you mean, I've had a few batches that weren't great! The box mixes are surprisingly good, so I don't blame you at all for opting to use them

My younger sister is baking sugar cut out cookies for us to decorate there as well.

So I’ll be baking a gluten free roasted vegetable and goat cheese tart; biscotti; and some type of dessert.

Mmm all sounds delicious! I love the idea of decorating cookies together, I sometimes do that with my nieces. Sprinkles everywhere, lol! The roasted veg tart sounds great too. I've never tried making biscotti, I'd love to give it a go sometime.


In terms of what I'm making for Easter, I decided to make the Babka! I actually made the fudge sauce a while back and froze it, but I delayed making the bread because Ian's problems with dairy seem to be getting worse. It used to be that he could eat small amounts, but even that is too much now. However we're seeing friends on Saturday so I'm sure I'll be able to rope in their help to eat it The vegans won't be able to have any of the babka, but like I mentioned above I might make a vegan lemon drizzle cake too.

 

[Angie CupcakeQueen]

Easter at my sisters house was so much fun. The kids had a blast and the desserts were a hit. They loved them.
The Carrot Patch brownies turned out adorable! So cute and they tasted really good too!
I had to alter this though. When I planned these I was going to use orange colored white chocolate covered strawberries as the carrots but after I went to two of the grocery store I frequent only to find that the strawberries are awful. I’m talking old, ugly and some even had mold.
So I decided to use leftover cake and buttercream to make cake pops.
I shaped them like carrots and used white chocolate for the green part as well.

The rice crispy treats were delicious. I was at a loss of how to Easter them up so I colored them green and used cookie cutters and sprinkles. Not as clear as I wanted them to be but it’s a blue bunny in the corner and little Easter eggs.

The fruit salad was awesome! It turned out better than I thought and everyone loved it!



I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!
-Angie

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Hahaha, everything is so cute. I love those peeps! They are an acquired taste. My sister cannot understand my obsession with the peeps.

The Washington Post newspaper used to have an annual Peeps Diorama Contest. People would make the most elaborate scenes using peeps. I was heartbroken when they entered the contest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ary-social-commentary/?utm_term=.e19c72bd6fdf

 

[Becky]

Those brownies look great! Hope the kids enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt

We've had a really good weekend - pretty tiring, but it was all good fun. I made rack of lamb last night, with crushed roasted new potatoes, aubergine bortha, and a fresh herb pesto. Yum!

Hope everyone has had a great weekend!

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Those brownies look great! Hope the kids enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt

We've had a really good weekend - pretty tiring, but it was all good fun. I made rack of lamb last night, with crushed roasted new potatoes, aubergine bortha, and a fresh herb pesto. Yum!

View attachment 1481

Hope everyone has had a great weekend!

That looks so delicious! I love lamb. I was at my sister’s ex house for an early dinner, egg dying and cookie decorating. We had a blast. We used silk ties, mint leaves, and cilantro embed images on the eggs. Some of them turned out amazingly beautiful.

 

[Becky]

That looks so delicious! I love lamb.

Yeah me too! It's a rare treat nowadays. I read a while back about the environmental impact of eating meat, and lamb is by far the worst (closely followed by beef). As a result we've cut back on how much meat we have, and when we have things like lamb or beef I always try and buy local stuff.

Those eggs are superb! I've never tried it before, is it difficult?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Yeah me too! It's a rare treat nowadays. I read a while back about the environmental impact of eating meat, and lamb is by far the worst (closely followed by beef). As a result we've cut back on how much meat we have, and when we have things like lamb or beef I always try and buy local stuff.

Those eggs are superb! I've never tried it before, is it difficult?

Very simple. This was the first time that we tried these methods. So it was a learning curve for us.

We used both liquid and gel food colors. They worked well

The silk tie technique is amazing. We cut up the ties, then tightly wrapped it print side around the egg. We then boiled the eggs about 15 mins. No food color necessary as the dye in the silk transfers onto the eggshell. The biggest challenge was to wrap the fabric around the egg tightly enough.

For the cilantro and other plant matter, we simply wet the egg and plant. Placed the leaves on the egg. Then tightly wrapped it in a piece of stocking.

We had so much fun we plan to do egg decorating again next Easter.

 

[Becky]

Ah I see, sounds really interesting. One thing that would certainly hinder things if I tried this in the UK - I only ever tend to see brown eggs! White eggs are really uncommon, apart from maybe goose eggs. I'd love to give it a try sometime though, and I bet my niece would really enjoy it