A light and simple, melt in your mouth shortbread cookie. Egg-free for those with allergies. Garnish with pastel candy sprinkles for an easy Easter treat.
RECIPE: Continue reading
Tag Archives: Easter
Berry Mousse Cheesecake with Fruit Glaze (Sugar Free)
A light and delicious sugar-free dessert that will please the whole family.
The filling is a no-bake light and airy cheesecake flavored with pureed strawberries and raspberries.
Take your dessert from simple to stunning by topping with a fresh raspberry glaze and garnishing with stabilized whipped cream and fresh berries.
RECIPE: Continue reading
Filed under Desserts
Homemade Crescent Rolls
Looking for the perfect rolls to serve with your Easter ham? Or more importantly, to use the next day to make ham sandwiches?
Look no further: these rolls are amazing. They are soft and tender, but also hold up to slicing and using as a sandwich bun.
Leftovers are always the best part of a big holiday dinner. I love cooking once and then repurposing dinner for the next few days. And rolls are the perfect food to make ahead of time, freeze, and then reheat in the oven just before serving.
To help elongate the crescent rolls and keep them from being too thick in the center, I cut a slit in the wide edge, separate the slit slightly, and then roll the dough into a crescent shape.
This gives longer ends that are easier to curve into a rounded crescent.
Happy Easter!
RECIPE:
Homemade Crescent Rolls
2 cups whole milk
½ cup + 1 Tbs sugar, divided
1/3 cup (5 1/3 Tbs) butter
2 tsp kosher salt
2 pkg active dry yeast (or 4 ½ tsp)
2/3 cup warm water
8-9 cups all-purpose flour
3 beaten eggs
Melted butter (about 4 Tbs)
Combine milk, ½ cup sugar, butter, and salt in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat until butter melts. Remove from heat. Allow to cool to lukewarm.
While the milk mixture is cooling, dissolve the yeast and 1 Tbs sugar in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes.
In a large mixing bowl, combine 3 cups flour and milk mixture. Beat on low for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl constantly. Add yeast mixture and beat on high for 3 minutes. Add beaten eggs.
Stir in as much remaining flour as needed to make a soft dough. This dough should be very soft–it will be coming away from the sides of the bowl, but it will still stick to your finger when you touch it. Place the bowl in a warm place and cover with a clean towel; allow to rise 1 hour.
Grease large baking sheets, or line with parchment paper or silicon mats.
Punch down dough. Lightly flour your work surface and turn dough out onto surface. Divide in half.
Roll each dough half into a circle and cut into 12 wedges. Cut a ½” slit in the wide end of the wedge, separate slightly and roll into crescent shapes and place on prepared pans.
Cover with a clean cloth and allow to rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes. When dough has about 15-20 minutes to go, preheat oven to 375°F.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden-brown. When done, remove from oven. Brush lightly with melted butter.
Yield: 24 rolls
**To prebake for serving another day: Bake rolls on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until rolls just barely begin to brown. Remove from oven. Cool. Place in Ziploc freezer bags. Freeze.
On serving day: Place frozen rolls on a baking sheet, bake for about 7-10 minutes, or until hot and golden brown. Brush tops with butter.
Adapted from Our Best Bites
NoEmptyChairs.me
Filed under Breads
Peeps Cupcakes (with a Surprise)
It has been a busy weekend for us around here, with a sleepover birthday party, a trip to the mall for an ear-piercing, church youth temple trip, oldest daughter returning from college, middle daughter returning from a school orchestra trip, a playdate for a little boy feeling left out of all the fun, regular Sunday church activities (plus an evening Easter devotional), followed by a child’s gall bladder removal on Monday.
If anything can help you through the wonderful chaos that is raising kids, it is these Peeps cupcakes. We served them at Little J’s 10th birthday party, but they would also make a fun Easter dessert.
The kids were excited to find a surprise inside of the cupcakes when they bit into them!
I scooped out the center of the cupcakes and Little J filled them with candy Easter eggs and m&ms. I piped a swirl of the rainbow frosting onto each cupcake and then we topped each one with a Peep. We used the Vanilla, Strawberry, and Orange Crème flavors. These Peeps are separated in their package so that you don’t have white patches (with no sugar covering) where you have to break the Peeps apart from a normal package.
To make the rainbow swirled frosting: Attach a large tip (I used a Wilton 1M) to a pastry bag. Using a clean paintbrush, paint stripes of gel food coloring along the inside of the pastry bag (the stripes do not have to touch). Carefully spoon white frosting into the bag. Squeeze out and discard a little of the frosting, until you begin to see color on the edge of the frosting. Pipe frosting onto the cupcakes: start on the outside of the cupcake, holding the bag straight up and down and proceed in a swirl, slightly overlapping layers, to the center of the cupcake.
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Happy Birthday Little J! Here she is sporting her newly pierced ears:
This week will be a much needed recovery week for all of us. A perfect time to reflect on the gift of the Atonement that we celebrate this week. Here is an Easter video on the Savior’s gift to each of us and who we can become Because of Him:
RECIPE:
Cooked Vanilla Frosting
1 cup whole milk
5 Tbs flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar (do not use powdered sugar)
Gel food coloring
In a small saucepan, mix the flour and milk with a whisk until combined. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk, until mixture thickens (and is just about to boil). Remove from heat and let it cool completely to room temperature. Stir in vanilla.
In a large mixing bowl (a stand mixer works best for this) cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the cooled milk mixture and beat for 5-7 minutes, until frosting is light, fluffy and completely uniform throughout.
FOR SWIRLED FROSTING: Attach a large tip (I used a Wilton 1M) to a pastry bag. Using a clean paintbrush, paint stripes of gel food coloring along the inside of the pastry bag (the stripes do not have to touch). Carefully spoon white frosting into the bag. Squeeze out and discard a little of the frosting, until you begin to see color on the edge of the frosting. Pipe frosting onto the cupcakes.
For a peaked swirl pattern: start on the outside of the cupcake, holding the bag straight up and proceed in a swirl, slightly overlapping layers, to the center of the cupcake. For a rose pattern: start in the center of the cupcake, holding the piping bag straight up and proceed in a swirl to the outside of the cupcakes (do not overlap layers).
Yield: frosting for about 24 cupcakes
NoEmptyChairs.me
Filed under Desserts, Kids' Cakes
Easter Resurrection Rolls
It is hard to believe this is Easter weekend when the weather has been doing this all week:
So we are spending our Easter break skiing instead of mulching and gardening, which is certainly making the kids happy!
When not on the slopes, we have been enjoying some of our favorite Easter food traditions, including dying eggs (and eating egg salad) and making these sweet rolls which remind us of the symbols of the resurrection.
These hollow rolls, symbolic of the empty tomb on Easter morning, are a good way to teach young kids about the resurrection. Made from packaged crescent rolls, marshmallows and cinnamon sugar, they are also easy for kids to make themselves.
Symbolism:
White marshmallow = body of Jesus (perfect)
Melted butter = oils used to anoint Jesus’ body
Cinnamon = spices used to anoint Jesus’ body
Crescent roll (well sealed) = sealed tomb
Hollow roll (after baking) = empty tomb after Christ’s resurrection
To make rolls:
Dip a large marshmallow in melted butter, then roll in cinnamon & sugar mixture.
Place dipped marshmallow in the center of a crescent roll.
Pinch the dough around the marshmallow, completely covering marshmallow. Pinch seams to seal well. Be sure to seal the seams completely, or the marshmallow will melt all over the baking sheet.
Place on prepared baking sheet. Brush tops of rolls with some of the leftover butter and sprinkle with additional cinnamon/sugar mixture. Bake at 375°F for 12-14 minutes.
I admit that it feels just a little bit sacrilegious to have the kids talk about dipping Jesus in butter, but it is certainly an object lesson that they remember all year. And a delicious way to remember the reason we celebrate Easter- the gift that was the atonement and resurrection of the Savior, as evidenced by the empty tomb.
May each of you enjoy the joy and blessing that the Savior has given as you celebrate Easter with family and friends. Click below for a great video on the last week of Christ’s life and His resurrection and appearance to Mary that first Easter morning:
He Is Risen
RECIPE:
Resurrection Rolls
1 can refrigerated crescent rolls
8 large marshmallows
¼ cup butter, melted
¼ cup sugar
1 Tbs cinnamon
Line a baking sheet with a silicone liner, parchment paper, or non-stick foil.
Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.
Unroll and separate crescent rolls. Dip a marshmallow in the melted butter, then roll in cinnamon/sugar mixture. Place the covered marshmallow on a raw crescent roll. Pinch the dough around the marshmallow, completely covering marshmallow. Pinch seams to seal well. Be sure to seal the seams completely, or the marshmallow will melt all over the baking sheet.
Place on prepared baking sheet. Brush tops of rolls with some of the leftover butter and sprinkle with additional cinnamon/sugar mixture.
Bake at 375°F for 12-14 minutes. Let cool for 2-3 minutes before removing rolls from baking sheet. Serve warm.
NOTE: Some of the melted marshmallow may leak during baking, but the roll should still form a hollow tomb. Pinch seams tightly to reduce oozing.
Symbolism:
White marshmallow = body of Jesus (perfect)
Melted butter = oils used to anoint Jesus’ body
Cinnamon = spices used to anoint Jesus’ body
Crescent roll (well sealed) = sealed tomb
Hollow roll (after baking) = empty tomb after Christ’s resurrection
NoEmptyChairs.me
Pesto Stuffed Flank Steak with Garlic Roasted Broccoli
If you are not going with the traditional baked ham for Easter, this makes a great alternative. We had this for Brian’s birthday a couple of weeks ago, and it was a big hit!
It is easy to prepare, and only uses two ingredients: a flank steak and prepared pesto. I used this Basil Pesto that has been hanging out in my freezer since the end of last summer. Still tastes great! You could use any prepared pesto; next time I would like to try a sun-dried tomato pesto in this.
The only tricky part of this recipe is butterflying the flank steak, and even that is not too tough. A large knife really helps. To butterfly the steak, cut almost all the way through the thickness of the flank steak, keeping the steak intact on one side.
To reduce mess, place your flank steak on a foil lined baking sheet and open it up flat. Spread with the pesto.
Optional step: Sear steak in a hot skillet on all sides. I did not do this and it turned out fine.
Roll up the flank steak and secure with kitchen string or toothpicks.
Spread top of steak with some of the pesto drippings (some are sure to have leaked out). Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper.
Roast at 425°F for 30-40 minutes, or until thermometer reaches 130-140°F (for medium rare). If you sear the steak first, it will need slightly less time.
Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
I served this with some sautéed mushrooms and this Garlic Roasted Broccoli. Roasting vegetables with garlic is definitely our favorite way to eat veges around here. See the recipe below for some alternate roasted vege ideas.
RECIPES:
Pesto Stuffed Flank Steak
1 flank steak
1 cup prepared Basil Pesto
salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Butterfly flank steak: Cut almost all the way through the thickness of the flank steak, keeping the steak intact on one side. On a foil lined baking sheet, open up butterflied steak and lay flat. Spread with pesto.
Roll up flank steak. Secure with kitchen string or toothpicks.
Optional step: Sear steak in a hot skillet on all sides.
Spread top of steak with some of the pesto drippings (some are sure to have leaked out). Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper.
Roast at 425°F for 30-40 minutes, or until thermometer reaches 130-140°F (for medium rare). If you sear the steak first, it will need slightly less time.
Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
NoEmptyChairs.me
Garlic Roasted Broccoli
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1 pound fresh broccoli
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
5-6 large cloves fresh garlic
salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Cut broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Smash garlic slightly with edge of knife or cut each large garlic clove into 3-4 slices. Put cut broccoli, garlic, and olive oil into large Ziploc bag and let marinate 30-60 minutes. (This is optional, but marinating will make the broccoli more garlicky.)
Preheat oven to 425°F. Place mixture on a foil-lined baking sheet and season with fresh ground black pepper and salt. Roast until vegetables are slightly softened and edges are starting to brown slightly, about 10-15 minutes. Serve hot.
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Alternate Preparations:
Roasted Broccoli with Sesame Seeds:
Follow recipe above, adding 1 Tbs soy sauce, 1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds, and 1 tsp sesame oil to marinade (use less garlic, if desired).
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Other Roasted Vegetables:
Try this cooking method with: asparagus, Brussels sprouts (cut in half), green beans, carrots, cauliflower. Adjust cooking time based on thickness of vegetable.
NoEmptyChairs.me
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This post was entered into the “Grow Your Own” roundup, created by Andrea’s Recipes and hosted this month by House of Annie.
Filed under Main Dishes, Side Dishes
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