Super Sweet Easter Treats

I will start this post by admitting that Easter has never been my favorite holiday. Maybe it’s because growing up we followed the tradition of hunting for our hidden Easter baskets on Easter morning, and I was never able to find mine (DON’T hide my candy!!!). Maybe it’s because when I was 14, I got my wisdom teeth out right before Easter, my face blew up like a chipmunk and I was forbidden from skipping out on Easter mass (seriously). Whatever the reason, in my younger years, Easter was not my favorite.

Over time though, my grumpy mood has shifted to allow the pastel and sunshine filled holiday into my heart. Getting engaged one year on Easter Sunday may have helped, and then of course, having little ones, changed the holiday completely. Now I lovingly hide those Easter baskets on Easter morning and stifle an evil laugh as the kids search for them, and we dye the eggs, and wear the bunny ears and get all dolled on Easter Sunday. And, Hello? How could I ever be mad at holiday where you are essentially given a basket full of CANDY? And where you run around hunting for eggs filled with CANDY (and sometimes a quarter)? So yeah, Easter and I have made amends, and now I enjoy it, in all of it’s sugar and jelly bean filled glory.

My Mom and Dad host Easter at their house. We have a big buffet style afternoon dinner, filled with lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. My mom does a big Easter egg hunt for the little ones (we’re up to 9!), and somehow she convinces one of the guys to put on her terrifying bunny costume to scare treat all the kids. Followed up of course by coffee and desserts, while kids run around outside in a complete sugar frenzy.

The past few years I have brought a dessert, so I thought I would share a few of them here for anybody who may be looking for something to bring along on your Easter Sunday this year (I have NO idea what I am making yet, btw).

Spring Confetti Bars
Last year I made Spring Confetti Bars that I found on Chelsea’s Messy Apron.

They are a chocolate chip cookie bar base, made with white chocolate chips. After you bake them for 13-15 minutes, you top them with marshmallows, white chocolate chips, and pastel m&m’s and bake them for a few more minutes. She added sprinkles as well (the confetti), but I have my limits. No, no I don’t, I must have just not had them on hand. Even without the sprinkles, these were definitely over the top on the sweetness scale, which doesn’t scare me. I did cut them smaller than a traditional bar or brownie though, so they wouldn’t scare off the less sweet obsessed. I just doubled my intake of them to make up for it, and they were SO good.

I really didn’t change the original recipe at all, so you can find the full breakdown of the ingredients and steps over at Chelsea’s Messy Apron where she has TONS of greats recipes. I do want to point out, that in the original recipe, she recommends cutting this dessert with a wet knife (whaat?). Yes, the wet knife is essential because it prevents the marshmallow from sticking, so it is a great tip! I also pushed my m&m’s into the marshmallow slightly when they were fresh out of the oven to help them “stick.”

This dessert was so fun and colorful and has totally inspired me to come up with some of my own fun “confetti bar” recipes, so stay tuned for those.

Bunny Butt Cake
Ok, I was going to title this cake “Bottoms Up Cake,” to try to class it up a little bit, but then when I tracked down where I originally found this cake, I realized that it was from the Better Crocker website! If Betty Crocker is okay calling it a Bunny Butt Cake, who am I to argue?

Growing up, my mom always made a lamb cake for Easter, using a lamb cake mold (I bet she still has it), covered in white icing and shredded coconut with jelly bean eyes and nose. So when I saw that this little bunny butt was also covered with coconut, it sort of felt like tradition, sort of.

This cake is made by mixing up one box of cake mix, mixed according to the packaged directions, and then dividing the batter between an oven-proof bowl and three muffin tins. It’s all put together with toothpicks and covered with icing and coconut. You can find the full breakdown on BettyCrocker.com. The only things that I did differently, were that I used flavored tootsie rolls, where they used laffy taffy, edible easter grass (from Target) around the bunny instead of tinted coconut, and I skipped out on the fruit roll-up carrots. Otherwise I followed the tutorial pretty closely. It was super fun to make and the coconut can hide a multitude of cake decorating sins. Bottoms Up!

Cake Pops
Two years in a row I made cake pops for Easter. I haven’t made them in quite a while, but some really cute cake pop stands have caught my eye lately, so they just may have to make a come-back.

Now, I will warn you, there are a lot of steps involved in making cake pops. You definitely can’t just “whip up a batch,” but they are so so good. The first time I made them, Gage was only a few months old, and I found the multiple steps helpful when tending to a baby because there were breaks between them all.

So yeah, you definitely need to devote some time when you offer to bring cake pops, but their adorableness is only rivaled by their deliciousness. I really love them too much. Both times that I have made them, I just decorated them with sprinkles before the chocolate hardened up, but the sky is really the limit when it comes to getting creative with them, so go for it.

Please, please, please check out Bakerella’s site for the full breakdown tutorial and to see all the amazing things that they have done with cake pops over there. I had to put this dessert last, because you will seriously get lost on Bakerella and I may not see you back for a bit, so much cute stuff!

So that’s it, my little Easter Sweet Treat round-up. I hope you saw something to tickle your whiskers. Anybody else making Easter desserts? Do you go the cutesy route or more traditional? I still have to figure out what I am bringing to Easter this year. Follow along on Facebook or Instagram and I will probably post a picture of whatever I come up with over there. I am definitely leaning towards upping my cake pop game, we’ll see…

Happy Easter!
xo
carrie

You can find many more fun Easter ideas on my Pinterest page!
Follow Happily Frazzled’s board Easter and Spring Fun on Pinterest.