Easter Recap

So.... tonight I managed to burn rice and had to deal with an avocado that oddly tasted more like a kiwi.

It's a night in the kitchen I'd kinda prefer to forget about.

So... Easter recap!

(this also means I can get rid of all the tabs I've had open for FAR too long with the recipe links. Bonus!)

First up.... breakfast for cooking day, which was Saturday....



Hey.... sometimes, whack-a-dough rolls are good for what they are... a quick, baked breakfast that doesn't demolish the kitchen. I had more that enough destruction ahead of me.

I started off with a cupcake version of Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Icing.

I swear, once upon a lifetime, I used to ROCK at making these. Really.

But my oven/baking karma has not been aligned lately, and I have had some massive cupcake fails. I was determined to do all right by these.


Aaaaaand then I started. And I did EVERYTHING wrong while making them. Ingredients in the wrong order, had to overmix to get everything working.... I figured they'd some how turn out magically perfectly just to spite me.

And no surprise..... CUPCAKE FAIL - AHEAD....



Totally deflated.... but thank heavens for icing. Icing can cover many sins. And we'll see that later.

Next up.... Grand Mariner Crepe Cake.

I saw this recipe last year when we were on our way to Vegas before Easter, in a magazine I bought for "on plane" reading. I knew I wanted to make it for Easter. I did, and it rocked.

And then, this past Thanksgiving, the hubby's cousin showed some very obvious disappointment that I thought this was NOT a Thanksgiving-worthy recipe, and requested I make it for Easter.

Can do.

It really is an easy recipe. Crepe batter... go!



One of the very nice things about this recipe.... the first crepe always turns out kinda bad. And it takes some time to really get the pan right and your crepe-making-groove going, but it doesn't matter.

You just stack the sub-par crepes on one plate, and the "wow - that's pretty!" ones on another plate.....



Hmmm.... we may have another contender for "prettiest crepe".....



It also couldn't be easier to put together.

Crepe....



Whipped creme.....



Crowd awe-ing spectacle now....



It doesn't matter if it's lopsided. People hear "crepe" and go "wooooooo" and you awe everyone in the room.

Time to deal with those cupcakes again, I guess.

Have the words "that has too much cream cheese frosting on it" ever been uttered by a sane person??



I don't think so.

I usually make a double batch of frosting. And especially, in this case, because I had some cupcake sins to cover with that frosting.

And it worked out rather well...



Hey... those don't look so bad!!

On Sunday morning, I just needed to bake off the Gougères dough I made on Friday.....



And cook my Asiago-Stuffed Dates with Bacon and Smoked Paprika...



And the final verdict on everything.....

Cupcakes.... yeah. Enough frosting to cover any sin. And the fresh ginger in that will make a carrot cake lover carrot cake obsessed.

Crepe cake.... I think the hubby's cousin ate a quarter of it, and I took none home.

Cheese puffs.... I have learned you can make the dough a couple days ahead of time and bake them "the day of". Works wonderfully.

Bacon wrapped dates... are bacon wrapped dates ever a bad thing???

Overall... a successful Easter.