Peeps Show S'mores Bars

Confession: Until yesterday, I had never eaten a Peep.

We grew up in an all-chocolate-and-jelly-bean Easter basket family.  {I love Easter.}

So, fast-forward to yesterday...I made Peeps Show S'mores Bars.  Peeps, combined with semisweet chocolate and a graham-crackery, oaty crust, baked until melty and gooey and messy?
ALL.KINDS.OF.AWESOME.

I love Peeps now, but honestly after taking a bite of one plain, I ONLY want my Peeps baked into these bars.

Scroll on down for the recipe, but here's what you're going to do...

First, Steal all of the Peeps out of your children's Easter baskets.
{I kid; I kid. RUN to the store Monday and stock up on them at half-price.}

OK, you'll make a crust/topping concoction with butter, oats, brown sugar and a few other ingredients...

{It comes together really fast.  You won't even need your mixer...just a saucepan...

...and a spoon.} 

...about half goes in a pan for the crust...

Here are the ingredients for the filling:

{Hello, Peeps.}

...you'll top the crust with chocolate chips...

...and some Peeps...

...and top with the rest of the topping/crust mixture...

...bake.

You'll let it rest for a bit, then you'll dig in. 

It's gooey and delicious...it may not be elegant, but it WILL make your eyes roll back in your head.  You might even moan a little.

Peeps Show S'mores Bars

ingredients:
6 TBSP salted butter
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
6 TBSP dark corn syrup
2 & 1/4 cups rolled oats (not instant, not steel cut)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 & 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
15 Peeps

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350.  Grease an 8x8 pan.  Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, heat the butter, brown sugar and corn syrup over medium heat, until the butter is melted and sugar has dissolved.  Remove from heat and stir in the oats, flour, salt and graham cracker crumbs.

Press a little more than half of this mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.  Place on a wire rack and let cool completely.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the cooled crust.  Top with the Peeps, making 3 rows of 5 Peeps.

Cover with the remaining topping/crust mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes; the Peeps will looks slightly misshapen under the topping.

Place on a wire cooling rack and let cool for 20 minutes.  Serve warm.
{adapted from S'mores Granola Bars, King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion}

{These bars are good at room temperature, too...but are a-MAZ-ing warm.}

What are you waiting for?!?  Go get some Peeps!

Happy Easter, bunnies!

aaaand, the obsession with double-decker cookies continues....

How do you say Happy Easter?  Dots, bunnies, sparkling sugar?

Yep.  That should do it.

You've heard of the "double-decker" cookie, right?  Two cookies, but only the guilt of eating one.  It's part of my new diet plan.

{You know, I thought the pink would be my favorite, but I actually ended up loving the yellow.}

Let me show you how to make them...
 
For the double-decker bunny cookies, you'll need:

• sugar cookies (pick any flavor cut-out here) in scalloped ovals and tiny bunny faces
• royal icing, divided and tinted with AmeriColor Lemon Yellow, Electric Pink, Regal Purple, Bright White, and Super Black
• couplers and tips: #3, #1
• disposable icing bags
• squeeze bottles
• toothpicks
• small paintbrush
• small ramekins
• meringue powder
• basket-style coffee filter
• sparking or sanding sugar: yellow, pink and purple

Use a #3 tip to outline the ovals and bunnies.  Reserve some of this piping consistency royal icing.

{PS...I'm officially obsessed with this scalloped oval.  PPS...anyone else watch Fashion Police?  Now I can't say "I'm obsessed" with something without thinking of Kelly Osbourne.}

Thin the yellow, pink, purple and white icings with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed.  Pour into squeeze bottles as needed.

Working a few cookies at a time, fill (flood) the ovals with white icing.  Use a toothpick to guide to edges.

On top of the wet white icing, drop dots of the thinned colored icing, starting with the first cookie filled.  (Giving the base color a few minutes to set will help prevent bleeding.)

Fill in the bunny faces.  Let the cookies dry uncovered 6-8 hours or overnight.

The next day,  mix 1/2 teaspoon meringue powder with 1/2 teaspoon water.  Brush this mixture onto the bunny faces.  Sprinkle on the sugar, shaking the excess off over a coffee filter.  Use the filter as a funnel to pour back into the jars. {psst...can you see where I overfilled one?}

Use a #1 tip to pipe eyes on the bunny faces in black.  Add a nose in an alternating color.

Pipe a small amount of icing onto the back of the bunny cookies.  Place on the ovals and press down slightly to adhere.  Let the cookies dry for at least 30 minutes before packaging and stacking.

What are you baking this Easter?

Just Hatched! Mini Speckled Egg Cookies

After making these bird's nest cupcakes with speckled egg cookie toppers last year, I couldn't get speckled eggs off my brain.  They are really so simple...and so much FUN to make!

 

This year, I ditched the cupcakes, added a few colors, piped on some details, and plopped them in berry baskets. {You can get the berry baskets here.} 

Two things you must know about these cookies: 

One: Mini cookies are a lot harder to resist eating.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Two: Flicking the food coloring, it's fun.  It's so much fun that you should do it when your kids are at school...or where they can't see you.  Otherwise, I see food coloring being flicked all over your house. 
{This is a warning from the uptight mom-lifeguard-teacher-prison warden side of me.  If you are one of those cool, laid-back moms I dream of being, by all means, let your kids loose with the flicking.}

To make the mini speckled egg cookies, you will need:

•  mini egg sugar cookies

•  royal icing, tinted with AmeriColor Chocolate Brown, Ivory, Avocado Green, and Turquoise mixed with Ivory
• coupler and tips (#1.5 or #2, #1, #15 star)
• disposable icing bags
• squeeze bottles
• toothpicks
• chocolate brown food coloring
• small ramekin
• small paintbrush
• glove

Using a #1.5 or #2 tip, outline all of the cookies with chocolate brown icing.  Reserve leftover brown icing for piping details the next day. (Just place the bag in the refrigerator.)

{Have I mentioned that piping egg shapes make me nervous?  My eggs are never exactly perfectly shaped.}

Thin the ivory, green, and turquoise icings with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed.  Pour into squeeze bottles as needed.

Flood the cookies with the colors, using a toothpick to guide to edges and pop large air bubbles.

Let the cookies dry uncovered, 6-8 hours or overnight.

The next day, place all of the cookies close together on a cookie sheet.  Mix a few drops of chocolate brown food coloring with a few drops of water in a small ramekin.

Put on your glove...I learned from last year.  Dip the paintbrush in the food coloring mixture, and with one finger, flick it onto the cookies.  Rotate the cookie sheet every so often to get all of the cookies.

Let the reserved brown icing come to room temperature.  Use a #1 or a #15 star tip to add details onto the speckled cookies.

Speckled Egg Cookies...don't you want to try?!?

Bunny Bait

If you are looking for something simple, quick and UTTERLY DELICIOUS to make and share for Easter, I have something for you.....Bunny Bait!

This idea actually comes from darling Kellie of This Blessed Nest and her Valentine Confetti.

{Why, yes, I have been dreaming about this since February.}

I followed Kellie's instructions (so pop over there for the recipe) with just a couple minor tweaks:

• I used Easter m&m's (that was probably obvious),
• and plain vanilla candy melts,
• and 2 full bags of popcorn,
• and added....

...Sprinkles!  

Here's my #1 tip for making Bunny Bait....

GET IT OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!

This stuff is highly addictive.  Bag it up and....Put it in your kiddo's lunchbox.  Send it to kiddo's teacher (Hi, Mrs. P!).  Run it over to the neighbors.  Send it with your hubby to work.
 
{And if your hubby is concerned about handing out something called "bunny bait" to his colleagues, tell him "Candied Popcorn" will work just fine.} ;)

Bird's Nest Cupcakes . . . with speckled egg cookie toppers

I'm not sure why, but the idea for these little bird's nest cupcakes popped into my head one day.  I thought...wow, THAT is a really original idea.  And then, I saw these on my friend Callye's blog.  Speckled egg cookies AND anthro-inspired bunnies that are just incredible.

Oh well, so maybe speckled egg cookies aren't so original, but I really like seeing different people's methods for making things.  {Especially when it involves sugar.}

To make the cookie toppers, I just used a mini egg cutter and poked a toothpick in the dough before baking.  I always freeze my cookies for about 5-10 minutes before putting them in the oven, so that made maneuvering them with the toothpicks easy.

Once the cookies were cooled, I iced them with royal icing and let them dry overnight.

The next day, I mixed equal parts (or close to equal parts) AmeriColor Chocolate Brown food coloring with water.  (Similar to the method used to make "wood-grain.")

 

Then, with a child's paintbrush, I flicked the mixture onto the cookies.  

It was really, really fun!!!

If you have those speckled granite countertops, you are in luck.  You are about to add a few more speckles.

WARNING:  Do not wear white when doing this.  Do not let your kids see you flicking food coloring all over the kitchen with a paint brush.  If your kids DO see you, try to act like you're not having fun. ;)

Oh, and this is what you finger will look like afterward.  You know, gloves would not have been a bad thing.

OK...the cupcakes.  I'm gonna fess up.  I used a box.  A doctored up box, but still a box.  Hey....I made the cookies.

AND...(fessing up again)...I used canned icing.  Honestly, I LIKE canned icing.  I'm sorry, but it's true.

{Looking out the window nervously for the Food Police.}

The method for doctoring up a cake mix for cupcakes come directly from the book Hello Cupcake.

Use a box mix (I like Betty Crocker French Vanilla), replace the water with 1 cup buttermilk.  Use the same amount of oil and increase the eggs to 4.  Then, mix and bake like normal.

On top of the CANNED FROSTING, I used toasted coconut to make the nests.  Toasting coconut is easy.

Spread it on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes, taking it out to stir frequently.

Frost the cupcake and sprinkle with coconut.

 

Add your cookies.

The love of canned frosting...am I alone?  Bueller? Bueller?