martha's good eggs

Real quick note here. I just was nominated as a finalist in the Martha Stewart "Martha's Good Eggs" competition for my egg piñatas in the category "Best Embellished Egg". If you could find the time to cast a quick vote for me (I'm #4) I'd be very thankful. Here's the link:

Martha's Good Eggs "Best Embellished Egg" (#4)

Thanks so much, and have a wonderful Easter weekend!

xoxo

three sweet ideas for easter

If you're making your Easter plans this weekend, here are three sweet little ideas to consider. These little macaroon nests are made in a donut pan and are great for Passover as well. My Easter egg piñatas are a fun change from dyeing eggs (but you could dye them and then fringe them as well). And the Easter bunny cake is a blast from my past, something my mother used to make every year.

Here are the links:

Coconut Macaroons for Easter and Passover

Easter Egg Piñatas (my tutorial on A Subtle Revelry last year)

Easter Bunny Cakes

Have a great weekend, everyone! xoxo

a simple easter menu

Easter 2013

We had a picture-perfect Easter. It's such a calm holiday compared to others. Oliver is at the crazy-magical age of 3 1/2 where everything he says is usually made up of joy or comedy, with the vocabulary to back it up. Watching him look for eggs was really awesome. He is easily astounded and really loud about it!

I spent less than an hour in the the kitchen working on dinner this year. Twenty minutes the night before pureeing a tapenade for the lamb by hand, because I have been blender-less since December when I burned out the 18-year-old motor on mine making Mexican hot chocolate tablets. Then the rest Hasselbacking some fingerling potatoes and working on the lamb. Easter is a holiday I like to celebrate with food, for sure, and this was the easiest Easter dinner I've ever made. 

deviled eggs

shocking!

lamb chops with pistachio tapenade

recipe from smitten kitchen

hasselback fingerling potatoes
adapted from this martha stewart living recipe

asparagus stalks
quickly braised (fried) in leftover pan juices (fat)

easter bunny cake

recipe here

Confession: This was supposed to be a donut post today, but I had another fail. Hasselback potatoes in the donut pan seemed like an excellent idea. Not so much!

easter bunny cakes

My mother used to make cakes like this. They stuck with me and I love making them. They were probably in the back of my mind when I made Oliver's Playsam cakes for his second birthday, as they are made the same way.

This couldn't be easier. 

Ingredients:

• (2) 8" cake rounds
• (2) tubs frosting (or your own frosting); I colored half of my frosting light brown with 4 drops each blue, yellow and red food coloring
• 14 oz. sweetened shredded coconut (toast half of it)
• jelly beans for nose and eyes
• card stock/chipboard for ears

I always make store-bought strawberry cake mix at Easter and many birthdays. Embarrassing!

Cut each cake round exactly in half.

Flip one half of each cake over and frost the flat bottom.

Attach the two halves back together as shown.

Now you've got two half-circles with frosting in the middle.

I lined two plates with parchment paper triangles to pull out after frosting the cakes and keep my plates pretty clean looking.

Put the cakes on the lined plates. Frost one bunny cake brown and one white.

Next, sprinkle and lightly pat the regular and toasted coconut onto the frosting. Use a light hand with the toasted coconut. It's not pliable like the regular coconut and doesn't look fluffy if you pat it into the sides too hard.

When you're done applying the coconut on the cakes, remove as much excess coconut as you can from the cakes themselves as well as the plates they are on, then gently slide the paper triangles out from underneath the cakes. Everything will look nice and clean.

Cut some nice long ears out of your card stock and chipboard. Color the middles of the ears pink if you want.

Stick the ears down into the cakes where you think ears should go.

This guy is an albino rabbit, so he got red jelly beans for eyes. 

This little guy got green eyes. Stella waited all morning to put these jelly beans on the bunnies. Sweetie.

That's it. Hardly worthy of a tutorial, they are so easy. I'm glad to pass this little idea down to Stella. I'm not letting anyone touch them until Sunday. We'll see how that goes!

Have a wonderful weekend and a happy Easter! xoxo

donut pan idea no. 44: coconut macaroons for easter + passover

This is one of the top three ideas suggested to me for the donut pan project, right after soap and candles. Coconut macaroons! They've been on our master list since last summer. These are easy and really delicious. You can serve them up plain or dipped in chocolate for Passover, or decorate them like little nests with candy for Easter.

Click on "read more" down below to read more!