Jo and Sue: Easter 2013

We will keep this short and sweet today.

Sue and I wanted to share a round up of our Easter inspired recipes from this year.

We will include links to the full recipe/how-to for each individual recipe as they are available.

The above photo is of our squishy bunny heads. They are cake balls dipped in white chocolate on top of a carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

We have made the bunny bums before and thought we would share them again. For the how-to on these cute little guys you can go to Hungry Happenings. Beth made the most adorable bunny bums and carrots that inspired us.

Our Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries and Strawberry Shortcake Scones are perfect for an Easter brunch.

More bunny bums! We made carrot cake loaves, covered them in cream cheese frosting, stuck on some Kit Kats to make a fence, and covered the top in carrot cake flavored M&Ms AND a cute little bunny bum. (We made these for an Easter bake sale)

Always an Easter favorite around our house. Hot Cross Buns are the perfect combination of spice and sweetness. This recipe makes a very large batch!

Sue makes a batch of these every year for Easter. They are Crunchy Chewy Peanut Butter Eggs. (Click HERE for the recipe)

These little "ice cream" cake balls are perfect any time of year. We dipped them in pastel colors and topped them with mini malted eggs to Easter them up a bit.

Another great brunch idea! Head back over to Hungry Happenings for the step-by-step on these carrot crescents stuffed with egg salad. We did ours a bit differently than Beth did...see photos below.

We used ice cream cones covered in tinfoil and lightly sprayed with cooking spray.

This photo was the "oopsy" on our first attempt. You DO NOT want to let the dough cool completely on the cones. They pretty much stick like glue once they are cool. So...FYI....remove them from the cones while they are still very warm.

We ended up making two different carrot cheese balls this year. Sue made this one for Easter dinner.

I will see if I can get her to part with her recipe! (Update - Here is her recipe! 1 (8oz) brick of cream cheese, softened, 1 can of flaked ham, splash of Worcestershire, about 1/4 cup finely diced onions. Mix altogether until well combined. Roll in finely shredded cheese and shape into whichever shape you would like. You may need to chill it for a bit to firm it up to be able to shape it. If you like it extra cheesy then you can also add about 1/2 cup of the finely shredded cheese into the ham/cream cheese mixture before you roll it in the shredded cheese.)

I made these Carrot Cheese Balls for our Easter potluck at work. You can find the recipe and how-to HERE. I think these would work great for April Fools' Day too.

Sue and I made a dozen or so of these guys for our mother to take to her Seniors Center. A carrot shaped cake ball dipped in orange melting wafers with a little edible grass for stems.

Okay. I figured we had better share at least one healthier Easter treat. This Carrot Crust Pizza was a big hit this year. Tasty AND pretty AND healthy! It's win win ... win baby!

Sue got all fancy and made savory Easter bread for every one's place setting at Easter dinner. These looked so pretty on the Easter table.

Another of our Easter dessert options. They were very simple. Take hollow chocolate eggs, cut the top off, pipe in some cheesecake (or cheesecake pudding), and top with a teeny bit of lemon curd.

Voila! Cheesecake stuffed chocolate eggs.

So adorable.

We fancied up our regular Carrot Cake recipe by piping on some colored cream cheese frosting. We baked the cakes in square pans, cut them into triangles with a teeny bit of trimming to get them to look "carrot shaped". (See photo below)

We were able to individually plate and decorate each "carrot" to sell at a bake sale. Simple but effective way to Easter-up a square cake.

Sue went a little crazy with the bread this year! She also made these adorable, yet super simple, Bunny Buns for the Easter bake sale.

See how cute they look all packaged up for the sale!

This Carrot Cake Fudge is a great idea, not only for Easter, but any time. We decorated with carrot cake M&M's but any candy will work.

This was my favorite new Easter recipe!! Carrot Cake Cheesecake Cake.

*cue angels singing*

Look at those amazing layers. Carrot cake....baked cheesecake...more carrot cake...then slathered in cream cheese frosting. *drool*

It took a little preparation but HOLY HECK...so worth it!

Proof that it doesn't take a lot of money to set out a beautiful Easter table. We picked up some dollar store fake grass, flowers, nests, and lanterns for next to nothing.