Three fun and easy treats to make for Easter
From Easter bunny houses to cheesy chicks and sweet flowers, plenty of simple options to wow your family
Here we are again prepping to celebrate another wonderful annual foodie event – Easter.
It doesn’t take much for me to get excited about an opportunity to break out all the fun sprinkles, icing, candy and chocolate baking or cooking goods. Any excuse to get creative with food – I’m there for it!
“Chocolate is the answer to every question this Easter.”
- Unknown
Full disclosure, there are so many tasty and adorable Easter ideas that I couldn’t just pick one. So, I decided to make a handful of options to share with you in this week’s Fit to Eat column.
They’re fun, easy, edible, and cost-effective. What’s not to love?
EASTER PEEPS HOUSE
Take this super cute Easter Peeps house for example.
All you need are some graham crackers, icing, Easterthemed or coloured sprinkles and Smarties.
Just think about how a gingerbread house is made at Christmas. Well, this is a smaller version for the Easter bunny - otherwise known as the sugar-filled marshmallow Peeps bunny.
Use the icing as a binder to build the house. You’ll need half a graham cookie for each of the three walls and two cookies for the roof.
When you have all sides attached, place it in the fridge to let the icing cool and set.
Then, when it’s sturdy enough, decorate as you want.
I love this idea as the Easter bunny houses are so small that you can make one for each person at the dining table and serve it as dessert. However, I would add a small bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce or chocolate chips on the side so you end up with something like a deconstructed ice cream sandwich.
EASTER CHICKS
Then, there’s these adorable cheesy Easter chicks.
To make them, you’ll need cream cheese, a carrot, finelyshredded cheddar cheese and black peppercorns.
First, roll the cream cheese into bite-size balls using your hands. Next, roll the balls in the finely-shredded cheddar cheese.
Then, cut the carrots into tiny triangles for the nose and feet and pop peppercorns in for the eyes and voila – you have yourself the most adorable cheesy Easter chicks.
You can serve them with crackers on the side or place the little cheesy Easter chicks on top of a cracker, like a crunch foundation.
There are lots of possibilities for this recipe as you can put things in the cream cheese to jazz it up, like bacon bits, jalapeno peppers, green onions, garlic or other spices. You can also use an entirely different soft cheese that has flavour built in, like Boursin cheese.
“Easter is the only time when it’s perfectly safe to put all your eggs in one basket.”
– Evan Esar
For something sweet, try making these pretty Easter flower pretzel bites.
Three ingredients to a sweet and salty combination that will make you say to yourself, “I should have made more.”
You will need small- to medium-sized pretzels, chocolate wafers and Smarties.
Preheat the oven to 250F. Next, place the pretzels on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Place the chocolate wafer on top of each pretzel and place them in the oven for about three minutes.
When you take them out, the wafer should be melted enough that you can place the Smarties on top in a flower pattern.
There are options here too. I used a vanilla candy wafer, but you can use whatever colour you want. Also, if you don’t want Smarties, pick something else that provides a sweet flavour but has spring-like colours.
“Easter egg hunts: Proof your child can find things when they really want to.”
– Unknown You could make an afternoon of it and have a little solo foodie prep party or you could get other people involved in making the fun festive Easter treats by having a foodie Easter prep event and get family, kids and friends involved.
Hoppy Easter, my fellow foodies. I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend and Easter break with family and friends and, of course, plenty of fun and delicious food.
I’m sure it will be most definitely fit to eat.