Easy Easter Desserts

Cooking has never been easier or less time consuming than in today's day and age. With all of the ready to bake mixes and prepared foods one can find in the grocery store, anyone can whip up a scrumptious treat that looks like you spent hours slaving away. Try a few of these ideas this Easter and go hassle free and soak up all the compliments!

Pudding Bunny

Grab a couple of boxes of pudding mix. Whip up according to directions on the package. For the next part, you will need candies. Pick out whatever you think will look cute and taste delicious. Some ideas are jellybeans and licorice. Use the licorice to twist and make bunny ears and whiskers. Add jellybean eyes and cheeks. Simple, cute, and tasty!

Egg Brownies

If you don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, save time by whipping up your favorite brownie mix. Cut the brownies with an egg or oval cookie cutter. Decorate with icing and candy. The end result is delicious chocolate goodness and adorable Easter fun!

Cupcakes

Start with a basic vanilla cupcake. You can use a cake mix to whip it up or use the recipe in this link. Grab store bought icing if you are in a pinch for time. Otherwise, making home made butter cream icing is simple to do and tastes delicious! It will also give you more icing to play with when mixing colors. Wilton has an easy, yummy icing recipe. There are all kinds of variations on how to decorate cute, Easter cupcakes.

Use food coloring to change the color of your icing. Think spring and make some pink, green, or pastel blue icing. In fact, make all three colors. You and your kids can have as much fun icing with all the shades as you will with the actual Easter Eggs.

Some garnishment ideas: Jellybeans, sprinkles, edible confetti shapes, Jellied bunny candies, gumdrops.

If you want a fun afternoon with your kids and their friends, grab some of everything. Whip up three or four shades of icing. Then sit the kids at the kitchen counter on stools and watch them get creative. They can ice the cupcakes and mix and match the garnishments to create their own edible masterpieces.

Cookies

Use a sugar cookie mix or a simple recipe for sugar cookies. I recommend using the link for the home made butter cream icing above. Dye it as you did for the cupcakes. You will also need some Easter shaped cookie cutters. Once the cookies have baked and cooled, ice them with various colors of icing. You can use a new, unused paintbrush to add details with other colors on the cookie. For instance if you ice the cookie white you can use a paintbrush to give the bunny some blue eyes and pink nose.

Cakes

There are so many ideas for cakes. I saw a picture of this idea and thought how cute and easy! So I set out to make it. It was delicious. Use your basic cupcake recipe above and your butter cream icing recipe above. Bake your cake in a round cake pan. While it is cooling get your icing ready and whip up a small batch of the sugar cookies from above. You can also save a few of them if you are making both treats. When the cake has cooled, ice it completely. You will want the icing to go all around the sides because it is going to act like glue. Use your cookies all around the cake. If you have made ducks or bunnies, these are especially nice for this treat. You can also add some Easter candies such as jellybeans to the top and sides of the cake for color. This treat looks spectacular when finished and works for any potluck or dessert.

Another easy cake variation comes from Sandra Lee, Semi Home made chef. She starts most of her dessert recipes out with a basic angel food cake bought from the store. Use your butter cream icing to dress it up. Then add fresh spring fruits like strawberries and blueberries or jellybeans and peeps to dress it up.

You can also get a pound cake. Slice it and hold the slices together with a bit of the butter cream icing. Then layer the butter cream icing over the pound cake. Get some coconut and cook it a bit to turn it brown. Be careful to add butter if using a skillet and not to overcook or fry it a dark brown color. Use the coconut over the iced pound cake. Add some shortbread cookie ears, jellybean eyes and licorice whiskers. You have an adorable bunny cake that no one can resist biting into.

As you can see here, it doesn't have to take a lot of time, energy, and money to create a satisfying dessert. Any of these will look great for whatever function or event you need to attend this Easter. Be sure to make some extras to share with your own family as the Easter holiday grows near. The dough and cake recipes can all be made in double batches and frozen in ziploc bags until the holiday gets closer. Thaw them in the refrigerator a few days before Easter and you can share an easy holiday sweet with your family on Easter day!