Eggcellent Eating!

Hi blog friends! I'm very EGGcited to share some of the EGGcellent recipes we've been making lately (in case you haven't already figured it out, I have lots of fun Easter baking to tell you about!).

A perfect special breakfast for spring is Cream Cheese Swirled Cinnamon Carrot Cake Muffins. These were actually quite easy to make. It's a basic muffin recipe and then you just stick a cube of cream cheese into each muffin cup before baking.

I like how you can see the cream cheese peeking through in these so that you know that there is something special inside.

And this is what they looked like cut through.

Strawberry Almond Tea Cake is another delicious recipe that feels very spring-like. We had this for breakfast, but you could definitely serve it as a snacking cake or even for dessert. The strawberries added pops of bright sweetness. The only thing that we didn't like about this recipe is that it only lists the quantities in volume, not in grams.

We did an experiment comparing methods to measure flour. My brother scooped 1 cup of flour, dipping a measuring cup into the flour container. My big-little sister used a spoon to fill a 1 cup measure. And then I aerated our container of flour before scooping. My brother's cup was 156 g, my big-little sister's cup was 146 g and my cup was 150 g. But if you look it up online, a cup of flour is supposed to be 120 g! So our experiment really showed why it is so much better to use recipes that are written with exact weights. But this cake is still worth making anyway!

Whipped cream was a perfect addition.

This Blueberry Yogurt Cake was a fun and easy breakfast. It was simple but satisfying, with mild flavor and a light texture. You can't taste the yogurt in this, but it acts as a lighter variation on sour cream. And this is a very healthy recipe, just a small amount of maple syrup is the only sweetener. Usually we only eat healthy breakfasts on school days, but my mom said that this qualified!

One thing that we all talked about when we ate this is that it would be great with different fruit. I think that I would actually prefer it with raspberries or strawberries because the blueberries don't add a ton of flavor and tend to roll off the top when you eat this. But if you think you want to give it a try with the blueberries, mixing them into the batter instead of sprinkling them on top might solve that problem.

We've cooked a lot fewer scones lately than we usually do, but these Cinnamon Sugar Scones were very good. The method for making these is slightly different than for most scones because you're supposed to roll out the dough and add cinnamon sugar and then fold it and do that again to create layers. We found the dough very hard to work with and mostly patted it out instead of rolling. But the finished product was really good. They have a perfect flaky texture.

You can see how the cinnamon sugar gets layered in.

This Cinnamon Sugar Apple Cake was also big hit all around. My dad liked the balance of apples and buttery flavors. I liked how the apples got really tender. We added walnuts to the recipe and I also liked how that added texture.

This would have also been nice topped with whipped cream, or you could even use ice cream and serve it as dessert.

You might remember from my last post, that I wrote about our favorite base Frittata recipe and how I'd like to potentially try a mushroom version when we went skiing in March. Well we went skiing in March and we tried a mushroom version! We followed the same basic recipe but used mushrooms, onions and spinach as our vegetables and cheddar as our cheese and I loved it.

If you've never tried making a frittata before, you should. It's a very filling breakfast, and can even be good for lunch or dinner. And it keeps really well. My mom and little-little sister ate the leftover frittata for lunch for a few days.

Another recipe that is also good because you could make it at the beginning of the week and eat it for a while is Healthy Egg Muffin Cups. This recipe is also similar to a frittata in that you could modify it to use whatever vegetables or mix-ins you wanted. We added cheese to ours, which I definitely recommend.

We made ours with onion, broccoli, spinach, peppers, mushroom jerky and cheddar cheese. And if you're wondering what mushroom jerky is, keep reading!!

We made Mushroom Jerky to use as a salty and savory alternative to bacon or ham and to add flavor to our egg cups. Mushroom jerky is just like beef jerky, in that you spice and dehydrate your main ingredient to make it. First we marinated mushrooms with soy and chili sauce and spices And then we cooked them in the oven at a low temperature. I actually didn't love using these in the muffin cups because the flavors were too strong, but I've enjoyed eating them on their own in my school lunches and on top of salads.

These are the marinated mushrooms that we started out with.

And these are what they cook down to! We doubled the recipe and two sheet pans like this is all that we got, so you should keep that in mind if you make it!

Another recipe that we have made before but recently modified was a Breakfast Tortilla Wrap. This time we added a cheese crust, which everybody loved. It was super easy to do and definitely takes this recipe to the next level.

First you just melt some grated cheddar cheese in your pan or on your griddle. The only problem with doing this is that it makes your griddle a real mess, as the picture shows! Then you place your folded tortilla on top of the cheese to cook. And melt another pile of cheese to flip your tortilla onto when it comes time to cook the second side. It is important to grate your own cheese though. Bagged shredded cheese comes mixed with preservatives to keep it from clumping, but they also keep it from melting well.

And then what you end up with is a breakfast tortilla with a golden, crunchy, cheesy crust!

We tried making a German Pancake for breakfast one day and everyone absolutely loved it. A German pancake is really the same thing as a Dutch baby, but this version is baked in a baking dish. Everybody agreed that this was a new favorite recipe!

It deflates quickly but looks really beautiful when it comes out of the oven.

We served ours with a strawberry compote, but you could use any fruit or just serve it plain. You could probably even do a savory version with herbs and cheese! I just thought of that as I was writing this, so I'm actually going to try it and I'll report back to you!!

Another popular ski breakfast that we made was Coffee Cake French Toast Casserole. This has a baked French toast base, a crumb topping, cream cheese cubes and it's supposed to have a glaze, but we actually forgot to add that part! I really liked the cream cheese component and thought that made this stand out from other French toast casseroles.

You can see how the topping does make this look like a coffee cake.

A less successful ski breakfast was Hawaiian French Toast Sticks. This recipe uses Hawaiian rolls, which are rolls that have been sweetened with pineapple juice, to make the French toast. You cut them like little sticks and can them dip them in maple syrup. My dad didn't like the texture of these. The rolls are very tender and so the French toast sticks are supposed to be custardy in the center, but they were a little too mushy for us and we thought that they had a kind of weird taste, but maybe we just don't like Hawaiian rolls?!

Even though I didn't love these, I like the concept of French toast sticks because dipping them is fun. I think I'd just use a sturdier bread next time.

Another new favorite was Healthy Berry Streusel Bars. I don't even think that this is meant to be a breakfast recipe, but they are made with oats and nut butter and fruit and we loved eating them for breakfast.

These were fantastic and would also be a great to serve as an after school snack.

My mom had to work overnight the night before Valentine's Day, but she left this Cranberry Spice Bundt Cake for us as a breakfast surprise. She was a bit worried baking it that we might not love it because it has a lot of cardamom in it, which isn't our favorite, but the spices mellow out in the baking and we all thought it was deliciously awesome!

We did this in a heart pan for Valentine's Day, but obviously a regular bundt pan would be fine. The color of the glaze sure makes this cake perfect for Valentine's Day though doesn't it?!

Another fun holiday breakfast that we had was Irish soda bread for St. Patrick's Day. We actually had an Irish Soda Bread showdown and cooked two versions to see which we liked better. The first version was Amazingly Easy Irish Soda Bread. This recipe calls for margarine, but we used Irish butter instead. An interesting feature of this recipe is that it has you baste the bread as it cooks with a mixture of melted butter and buttermilk. I loved this recipe. It was soft and sweet and fluffy.

I liked the way putting an X in the top of the loaf looked.

We served this with maple butter, which I definitely recommend.

Our second version was Grandma's Irish Soda Bread. This version includes raisins, but we substituted in currants. We prefer them because they are smaller. My mom and big-little sister don't like the texture of raisins in baked goods. This recipe includes cold butter, which we grated like we do when we make scones. It was a little bit hard to compare these recipes because I think that my dad and Alec liked this one more just because of the currants. We should have added currants to both or neither to make it a truer comparison.

This loaf was larger and got very brown.

The currants were good in this, but I think I'd maybe like the other recipe with currants added best of all.

As part of our Easter brunch we had Baked Eggs with Crème Fraîche and Smoked Salmon. This recipe isn't very healthy, so it's more of a special occasion treat, but wowzers are these incredible!!! You just have to trust me that this is worth doing for a special brunch. I'm worried that maybe this doesn't sound as amazing as it is, but it is really amazing!!!!!

These would be good any time of year. I would definitely serve them on Christmas, but the dill does make them especially nice for spring.

One of our favorite restaurants in Montana serves soft pretzels and beer cheese, which we all love, so we decided to make our own German Soft Pretzel Sticks. First we made a dough and let it rise. After that, we split the dough into little balls and rolled them into logs before we boiled and baked them. We made these for the Super Bowl and served them with Beer Cheese Dip and everybody loved them. My dad thought that the beer cheese dip didn't have enough flavor, and so we might try a different recipe for that part next time, but these pretzels are keepers for sure.

The pretzels were a perfect golden brown and they complimented the beer cheese nicely. This combination really is a perfect appetizer for a Super Bowl party!

Another fun recipe that we made that's good for entertaining is Whipped Brie. I'd never even heard of whipped brie before and so we were curious to try it. Basically it's so easy to make that it's hard to even call it a recipe. You cut the rind off of brie and then you whip it! The interesting thing about this recipe is that whipping the brie really turns it into something completely different. The whipping lightens it and softens the flavor so that nobody who tried it even realized what it was. It almost just tastes like a really good rich butter, but it's definitely worth trying.

We topped it with honey and honeycomb and berries and thyme.

I thought that this made a very pretty appetizer to put out with a cheese board.

A good dinner recipe that I really enjoyed was Seafood Chili. I know that chili more often has meat in it, but it's actually healthier and delicious with seafood. This recipe includes crabmeat, which I thought was the best part. We substituted regular corn for the baby corn because that's what we had, but I liked it that way.

There were many different elements included in this recipe, which gave a nice variety of textures and flavors.

Another dinner that we made was Thai Fish Curry. This one got some mixed reviews. My big-little sister absolutely loved this. But we used striped bass for our fish and my dad didn't like that component. I actually didn't love it either because I thought that the fish itself was too dry. But we all liked the flavors of the curry. We would just make it with a different fish next time.

This recipe makes a very pretty and colorful bowl, so I'm definitely interested in trying it again.

We made a version of Kung Pao Shrimp that everyone liked, but we had to modify the recipe. We realized that we didn't have hoisin sauce once we were about to start cooking, and so we used 2 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1/2 tbsp of fish sauce and 1 tbsp of miso instead. This actually worked out great and was very flavorful, but I thought it was too salty. That was probably because of the fish sauce, so if you try our variation, I might reduce the amount of fish sauce a bit.

This was another colorful and pretty dinner that could be adapted with different protein.

Mushroom Stroganoff was a recipe that everyone loved. Everything about this recipe is outstanding. It is warm and comforting and flavorful.

First you make a savory, creamy mushroom sauce with white wine and thyme.

And then you serve it over egg noodles. We have noticed that Asian grocery stores tend to have mushrooms that are much better than what we can get at Whole Foods. So we got our mushrooms from HMart for this recipe.

An even more successful similar dish was Miso-Mushroom Pasta. My big-little sister said that this was "to die for." It was one of my favorite pastas that I've ever had.

This recipe uses bucatini, which is like thick spaghetti with a hole in the middle. I love the thickness and I like it more than spaghetti because sauce gets trapped in the holes which makes every bite more flavorful.

A fun recipe that my brother and I really liked was Vegetarian Meatballs. These get made with cauliflower, quinoa and brown rice. A problem with grain meatballs that we've had in the past is that they can fall apart easily, but these held together beautifully.

We served this with marinara sauce for dipping.

Black Bean Soup was another winner. The full title of this recipe is actually "Contest-Winning Black Bean Soup" and I definitely understand why! This soup looks dark and murky, but it is actually full of bright flavors from peppers and lime juice.

The sour cream on top cools the heat nicely. We added crushed tortilla chips as well and I really liked that.

Another recipe that we all enjoyed was Baked Ziti with Roasted Vegetables. The addition of the roast vegetables adds a significant amount of time and effort though. The results are really good, but it takes some preparation. We used this Super Simple Marinara Sauce recipe for the sauce component, and a full box of pasta to get more servings. We all loved it, especially my big-little sister.

This doesn't cut cleanly, so it doesn't make for a beautiful photograph, but it definitely tastes great.

A fun dinner that we had on Valentine's Day was Tomato Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches that my mom cut into hearts for us. This guide has tips on how to make the very best grilled cheese. That might sound silly, but I've noticed that grilled cheese is a basic dish where some extra effort makes a big difference. Freshly grating cheese makes for the best melting and using a mixture of different cheeses makes for the best flavor. And we reduce the butter and oil in a lot of our dinner recipes, but you really can't skimp on the butter here!

Isn't this a cute Valentine's Day meal?!

Another soup recipe that we tried recently was Miso Soup. My dad actually made this with us one weekend and it was a huge huge success. The quality of the ingredients really matters here too, so we got our tofu and seaweed and bonito and miso from HMart (and of course we got more mushrooms, as long as we were shopping there!). We used silken tofu for this recipe, which we hadn't tried before, and we all really liked the creaminess of that, especially my brother.

This soup looked beautiful and my big-little sister thought that it was better than any miso soup we have gotten at a restaurant.

The second time that we made the miso soup, we had it with a cucumber and pepper salad. We based it off of something that my dad saw online and used this Miso-Ginger Dressing that we also love on regular salads. The cucumbers and peppers get mixed with the dressing and Everything Bagel seasoning and chili crunch, although we left the chili crunch off for my big-little sister because she doesn't like things too spicy. We all really enjoyed this salad. I bet it would be good with grilled shrimp for a summer entree too.

I liked how this was bright and colorful.

Another fantastic new recipe we tried is Golden Ginger Cauliflower Chickpea Bowls. I really can't say enough good things about this one. You should just make it.

First you roast cauliflower and chickpeas until they are crispy.

And then you serve that over grains with a hummus dressing. We used our own hummus for this, which I definitely recommend. It isn't hard to make and it is SOOO much better than anything you can buy at the store. Just let me know if you are interested in our hummus recipe. We use a recipe from my Grandma Linda. It is very lemony and garlicky and has strong cumin flavor too.

My dad requested chicken wings for the Super Bowl and one of our family New Year's resolutions was to try to reduce our food waste, so my mom wanted to make sure to use the leftovers. We decided to chop up the left over wing meat and add it to our usual Fried Rice recipe. Fried rice is a great recipe to make whenever you have leftovers because it is so adaptable. It is similar to soup in that way because you can pretty much add in whatever you want and make it come together and taste good.

We always put water chestnuts into our fried rice to add crunch and peas to add color! The peas are my big-little sister's favorite part.

My dad wanted us to have a ham for Easter. I would have rather had a pescatarian Easter, but I know that ham is an Easter tradition for us, and my mom said that it's important to be flexible! So we did have the ham, but we made sure to make good use of the leftovers. My mom was working the Monday after Easter, but she soaked beans the night before and then started a ham soup in our slow cooker before she left for work. There wasn't a recipe for this, but she put onions, carrots, celery, chopped ham, soaked Rancho Gordo Christmas Lima Beans, and vegetable stock in the slow cooker. My dad prefers it when we make soup on the stove because it reduces and the flavors concentrate better, but the slow cooker is a great option for when you're not home to cook.

We added some half & half at the end because my brother and big-little sister prefer creamy soups and I liked the body that this added too!

We also used our Easter ham in a pasta recipe called Penne Al Baffo, which is a creamy tomato-ham pasta. Everybody liked this one a lot. The sauce has heavy cream in it, which adds richness.

Since our trip to Puglia last summer, we have started buying our pasta from Eataly, where they sell authentic Italian pasta, and it really is better than grocery store brands.

We had friends over to meet their new baby one afternoon and made this Butterscotch Bundt Cake as an afternoon snack to serve. I never really understood what the term "tender crumb" meant until I baked this cake. This cake is unbelievably, well, tender!!!! It is really fantastic and the icing is amazing. I highly recommend this one!

I liked the way that the icing firmed up with the drips moving down.

A new fun type of cake that we tried is called Magic Cake. What makes the magic is that you make a single cake batter, but as it bakes in divides itself into three layers. The batter includes whipped egg whites and that helps form the top layer, which is a light sponge. It is cooked at a low temperature and that allows for the cake to set very slowly and so it divides into layers based on density. This was the basic magic cake, which is a vanilla flavor. We all really enjoyed this, but it is a mild vanilla flavor. Other versions that we tried had more oomph to them!

Don't the layers look cool though?!

We tried Lemon Magic Cake but this version actually doesn't taste lemony at all, which was quite disappointing. My dad was literally surprised when we told him that it was supposed to be a lemon cake and said that he would have had no idea!

One thing that I like about magic cake though is that it just looks like a regular cake in the pan.

But then you get this surprise when you cut it!

So of course we obviously had to try the Chocolate Magic Cake version next. And this one was definitely my favorite because it had the most intense flavor.

The only downside of the chocolate version is that the deeper color makes the layers a bit harder to see.

One of my very very favorite recent recipes was Perfect Butter Mochi. My brother absolutely LOVED this, and it was a huge huge hit with everybody. It has fantastic coconut flavor and a lightly crackly crust. I will say that mochi does have a different texture from typical baked treats. It's chewy, but do not let that scare you off. It's absolutely amazing and super easy to make and everyone should go buy some mochi flour and cook this immediately and then tell me all about what you think in the comments!

We found that cutting these with a plastic knife worked much better for achieving clean cuts.

An excellent cookie that we made was Chocolate Chip Nutella Oatmeal Cookies. This is another recipe though where the flavor doesn't come through as you might expect. Nobody even realized that these had Nutella in them. Rachel had no idea that there was Nutella involved but she loved them. She said that these have the perfect ratio of chocolate to cookie and the perfect saltiness.

The Nutella gets stuffed into the middle, but I'm sure you could increase the quantity if you wanted a more noticeable Nutella flavor. We always make our cookies a bit smaller than recipes suggest. This was supposed to make 16 cookies but we got 22. We don't feel like we need huge cookies, but we generally shorten the baking time to adjust for a smaller size.

Another cookie that we made recently was Fudgy Brownie Cookies. These are very intensely chocolatey. My dad liked that they aren't too sweet. We brought some to our friend Jen who manages Toppers, which is one of our favorite restaurants, and she really liked them too!

These cookies have a crackly top, just like brownies!

We also used these to make sandwich cookies with peanut butter buttercream and they were awesome!

We had another showdown with Fluffernutter Rice Krispie Treats, similar to what we did with the Irish Soda Bread. I think it's fun comparing two versions of the same recipe. Maybe sometime I'll do a blog post that only has recipe showdowns! Our first Fluffernutter Rice Krispie Treats were very soft and gooey, which we really liked. This recipe includes both melted regular marshmallows and marshmallow fluff, which we don't usually use in our typical Rice Krispie Treats, but maybe we should try in the future!

You can see how these have a lot of marshmallow in them.

Our second recipe for Fluffernutter Krispie Treats included a layer of peanut butter topping, which we loved, but the texture of the cereal layer wasn't as good.

The topping with the mini peanut butter cups on top was delicious and looked great though.

This was maybe the only time that we have compared recipes and had every single person who tried both give the exact same feedback. My entire family and Rachel and Chelsea and Marduche all liked the first Rice Krispie Treats but liked the topping component of the second. So what is a Mini Michelinista to do? Combine them obviously!!!!!!

We tried again and made the first base, but added the topping from the second recipe and voila! May I present to you the PERFECT Fluffernutter Rice Krispie Treat!!!!

A super simple treat recipe for if you're ever tight on time but want to bake something fun is Confetti Squares. To make these you just melt together salted butter, peanut butter and butterscotch chips and then mix in vanilla and rainbow marshmallows once it cools. Butterscotch chips are an ingredient like white chocolate, in that buying a more expensive brand makes a big difference. That's true for all chocolate, but basic regular chocolate is okay. Basic white chocolate or butterscotch chips can taste chalky and artificial and gross. We don't bake with butterscotch chips very frequently and they can be hard to find, so we order Guittard online and then always have them around when we need them. We were a little bit nervous making these because the only rainbow marshmallows we could find were fruit flavored. But it turned out not to matter because the peanut butter flavor is strong enough that it overpowers anything fruity in the marshmallows.

These bars are very rich and have a mostly marshmallow texture. We loved them but you have to be prepared that they are more like a soft candy, than something baked.

Remember how in my last blog post, I told you about the online Milk Bar baking class we did at the beginning of the year? Well we ended up with some leftover components from that and we wanted to make sure to use them as part of our effort to reduce our food waste. So we used our extra peanut butter caramel from our Candy Bar Pie Snaps to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel Bars. This recipe has you make dough and then layer melted caramels and peanut butter cups in the middle. We used our own peanut butter caramel instead and these were awesome.

You spread half the dough into your pan and then layer on your caramel and peanut butter cups before topping it with the second half of your dough.

This is how they looked baked.

The center caramel and candy layer makes these very rich so we cut them small.

We also had leftover strawberry curd from our Strawberry Cups prototype development and so we used it as a filling in these Strawberry Jam Butter Cookies. This is a simple thumbprint butter cookie that you're supposed to bake with jam. We baked them plain and then filled them with our strawberry curd after and drizzled them with a lemon glaze.

These looked very cute and you could definitely make them with all kinds of different filling.

We also had leftover strawberry buttercream and strawberry short cake crumb from our Strawberry Cups and so we used the butterceam and crumb mixture to fill Strawberry Whoopie pies.

These were really delicious and looked super cute to give out around Valentine's Day.

I thought that they looked like they could have come from a professional bakery once we boxed them!

A dessert that we made that did NOT look like it came from a professional bakery was an Ultimate Skillet Brownie. We had a fondue party with some of our ski instructors and friends in Montana. Our friend Jean is from Switzerland and he made us traditional Swiss fondue and raclette, which is a special cheese that doesn't taste good raw but is amazing melted, that you pour over potatoes and bread and vegetables. My mom and I were in charge of dessert and Jean loves chocolate so we decided to make this. We had to order the chocolate online because we can't buy great chocolate in Montana and we were worried about the chocolate coming in time, but fortunately it did! This brownie was very moist and fudgy. Of course we served it with vanilla ice cream, which I definitely recommend. And we also drizzled Simple Homemade Chocolate Sauce on top. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of how we served it! The chocolate sauce is a great touch and it's easy to make and should be done in advance, which we always prefer anyway!

We forgot to take a picture while the skillet brownie still looked pretty, obviously!

We also made cute Rice Krispie Treats to give friends for Valentine's Day. We just followed the basic Rice Krispie Treats Recipe and cut them into hearts and decorated them with drizzled pink candy melts and sprinkles.

These would also be cute to give out as favors or treats at a party.

These Love Bugs weren't exactly a recipe, but they are another cute Valentine's Day treat. You just dip Oreos in melted candy melts or dyed white chocolate and then decorate with sprinkles and candy eyes.

These were fun to make and were a good project for kids.

We also made Strawberry Cupcakes for Valentine's Day. These would be a great spring or summertime treat too, without the Valentine's Day sprinkles. You could even decorate them with a fresh strawberry slice.

My brother took these to a Valentine's Day ice skating party. At least we knew they wouldn't melt there!

And now I can finally tell you about all of our eggcellent Easter baking! We started out with Cadbury Mini Egg Cookies. These were awesome. Everyone who tried them just loved them. I think Cadbury Mini Eggs are one of the very best chocolate candies and so it isn't surprising that they make a great addition to a cookie. Rachel said that she was a bit skeptical at first but ended up loving all our baking with Easter candy!

I liked how the Mini Eggs peek through the cookies a bit, so that you can tell that they're not just regular chocolate chip cookies.

Continuing with our showdown trend, we tried comparing Cadbury Mini Egg and m&m blondies. Our first recipe was Easter Egg Blondies made with m&ms. These were Chelsea's favorite because she liked the crunch of the m&ms. And these were my dad's favorite too.

These looked very festive and would be great for an Easter celebration.

Our next recipe was for Mini Egg Easter Blondies. I liked the flavor of these better, but the color wasn't as pretty as the m&m version. But my brother and big-little sister agreed with me that they liked these best.

Mini Eggs are bigger than m&ms and so the blondies and brownies we made with Mini Eggs were definitely harder to cut.

We also used Easter m&ms to make some pretzel treats. These don't have a recipe, but you take square pretzel snaps and use white chocolate or white candy melts to attach m&ms so that they look like flowers. Melted white chocolate tastes better, but melted candy melts are thicker and easier to work with.

These look like they should be easy to make, but ended up being unbelievably hard. My mom gave up after her first one! I stuck with it and made some pretty ones, but it was very tedious and time consuming.

They did look cute though!

We also made very festive bunny cupcakes the weekend before Easter. We used our favorite Simply Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes recipe and then just decorated them to look like bunnies.

My mom thought that they came out looking a little bit like white lions instead of bunnies, but I thought they were cute!

A super easy recipe that everybody loved was Easter Fudge. This recipe was so fast to make, you just melt chocolate and sweetened condensed milk on the stove and then mix in vanilla and toasted coconut, but it turns out to be fantastic.

Then you add shredded coconut and Mini Eggs on top so that the pieces look like little nests.

We found these adorable bunny boxes that we used to give people all of our Easter treats in!

We also made Mini Egg Brownies. We forgot to take a picture, but they looked very similar to the fudge, except that they didn't have the coconut. These were awesome. One thing that we learned baking them though was that there is a huge variation in the percentage of cacao across chocolates that are all labeled "semisweet." So it's important to pay attention to how dark your semisweet chocolate is, depending on how sweet or not you want your final product to be.

These are just three kinds of semisweet chocolate that we happened to have in our pantry and the range of cacao in them varies by almost 40%!

One of my favorite Easter treats that we made is another one that doesn't even have a recipe. But I thought that these Peep Nests were so much fun to make and give out. All that you do is mix skinny pretzel sticks with melted white chocolate and then form them into nests and stick on Peeps and Mini Eggs.

My big-little sister's teacher sent us a picture of her son carrying one of these around their house because he loved it so much!

After the nests, we went on a ridiculous Peeps baking roll! My dad doesn't like Peeps (and is a little bit worried that they are maybe toxic), so he wasn't a huge fan of the phase. But we had fun with it! Peep Stuffed Easter Cookies were fantastic. Rachel said that they were in our top ten creations ever!!!! We chilled our formed cookies overnight, so they do require some advance planning. The recipe says that it makes eight cookies, but we made this recipe twice and got 12 cookies the first time and 11 cookies the second time, and they were still HUGE.

These cookies look gorgeous and taste every bit as good as they look!

We also made Peeps brownies. The recipes we found all used boxed brownie mix and we didn't want to do that, so instead we used a recipe that we know we like for Seriously Fudge Homemade Brownies and then we added cut up Peeps on top for the last five minutes. You have to watch them carefully though to make sure that they melt a little bit but don't toast and turn into a murky brown mess!

I love how the finished pan looks like a beautiful rainbow wonderland. If unicorns eat brownies, I bet they look like this!!!!!

Of course we made Peeps Blondies too. These were also delicious. The blondies have m&ms in the them, which gave them nice texture. Next year, maybe we'll try adding Easter m&ms to our Peeps Brownies too.

Both the brownies and the blondies were a bit tricky to cut though. Using a plastic knife with cooking spray on it worked well. We also had success with a metal knife - cleaning it between each cut and pushing the knife down but then sliding it out instead of lifting it back up helped.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading about all of our EGGcellent treats. We're actually planning on still doing some baking with Cadbury Creme eggs so we're not even done yet! And then after that we'll be RHEALLY RHEADY for spring baking, if you get what I mean!!!!!