Easter is around the corner and I’ve been searching for Easter dessert recipes to get me inspired! This collection of creative Easter recipes blew me away so I’m sharing them here with you. These recipes welcome spring with beautiful pastel colors, eggs, bunnies and chicks. They are perfect for an Easter dessert, event or a fun project with the little ones.
Top right (above): Robins Egg Speckled Cookies from The Miniature Moose
Top left (above): Speckled Easter Cupcakes from Urban Bakes
Middle right (above): Flower Pot Cookies from The Gunny Sack
Middle left (above): Cadbury Mini Eggs Layer Cake from The Gunny Sack
Lower right (above): Super Soft Sugar Cookies & Ombre Egg Tutorial from The Kitchen McCabe
Bottom (above): Easter Egg Nest Macaroons from Yummy Healthy Easy
Top left (below): Mini Easter Carrot Cakes from Food Faith Fitness
Top right (below): Green Tea & Honey Cake from Love and Duck Fat
Middle left (below): Bird, Chick or Duckling Cookies from Bake and Bait
Middle right (below): Chocolate Easter Bunny Cake from The Cake Blog
Bottom left (below): Lil’ Chick Cookie Cups from The Gunny Sack
Bottom right (below): Egg Cartons and Coconut Cupcakes from Handmade Mood
I hope this collection of spring-inspired Easter desserts got you ready to cook up some lovely desserts to celebrate this time of year. Check back next week for more inspiration as I begin this new series highlighting some of the best recipes from blogs I love on Love and Duck Fat.
-Marni
Discussion: Which one of these dessert would you like to make for Easter? Do you have a favorite Easter dessert?
This recipe for pistachio and cardamom shortbread cookies has been tossing around my head for months. I could imagine what they would taste like: buttery-sweet shortbread with a hint of cardamom, encased with a ring of salted pistachio.
Cardamom was a little difficult to track down. My grocery store didn’t carry it in the spice section, so I ended up purchasing a bottle of organic ground cardamom on Amazon.
I used salted pistachios in this recipe, because I prefer a little salt in my sweets. It brings out the buttery taste of the shortbread and plays up the nutty pistachio crust. Use unsalted pistachios if you want a less savory version.
These cookies were fun to make. The dough is easy to work with and once you roll it up in plastic wrap and allow it to chill, cutting the cookies is a snap. To get that beautiful pistachio crust, the chilled dough log is rolled back and forth in crushed pistachios right before slicing the cookies and baking them. A single whole pistachio pressed into the center puts them over the top.
Pistachio Cardamom Shortbread Cookies
As I was photographing the cookies, my 15-month-old snuck his little hand into the shot. At first, I pushed his little grabby fingers away, but eventually let him steal a cookie. How could I not? The resulting image melts my heart. I just love those fat little fingers!
My whole family loved this recipe and I hope you do too. The cookies aren’t too sweet, and they are full of sweet nutty flavor. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Method
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream the butter until light in color and smooth. Add the vanilla bean seeds, orange zest, salt and cardamom.
Sift together the powdered sugar and flour. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until it comes together into a dough. Form into a log about 2 inches thick and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/ 180 degrees C.
Unwrap the cookie log and allow to soften for 5-10 minutes, enough so the outside becomes slightly tacky. Roll the log in the chopped pistachios, pressing down softly so there is a thick coating. Slice into 1/4-inch pieces and place on a cookie sheet 1-inch apart. Press a whole pistachio into the middle of each cookie.
Bake for 10-20 minutes until the edges are very slightly brown, rotating the pan halfway through.
http://loveandduckfat.com/pistachio-cardamom-shortbread-cookies/
Recipe adapted from Saffron and Pistachio Shortbread Cookies by Yossy Arefi
I think I’ve been approaching this “learning to bake” thing backwards. Here I am, 100+ recipes into my blog, and I’ve made 8 cakes and only 2 cookie recipes. Baking cookies is so much easier! That said; this chocolate espresso crinkle cookie recipe is a little challenging. Not because the recipe is hard to make, but because they are delicate once baked. In a good way.
Chocolate Espresso Crinkle Cookie Recipe
These chocolate espresso crinkle cookies have 3 kinds of chocolate, barely held together with a bit of flour and butter. They are addicting in so many ways. With dark, rich chocolate, a light cake-like consistency, and the added caffeine-boost of espresso; they were gone in days. Two days.
So my warning: Don’t make these cookies if you plan on having them around for a little while. It won’t happen.
Do make them if you want to eat a cookie that you can’t buy in a grocery store—that tastes 10x better than any cookie in the grocery store. If you have little ones, tell them these are “mommy’s and daddy’s cookies” because you will want them all for yourself and they shouldn’t have caffeine anyway. If you have guests over, impress them with your sophistication and great baking abilities because these look so gorgeous. I’m a fan. Can you tell?
Chocolate Espresso Crinkle Cookie Recipe
Slightly adapted from David Rocco’s Chocolate Espresso Cookies
Ingredients
Method
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, instant espresso, baking powder, and salt, using the back of a spoon to press any lumps through.
In a separate mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until light in color and fluffy. Add the egg and melted chocolate and mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients and 1 tablespoon of milk.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
The resulting dough will be sticky. Wrap it in plastic wrap and chill in the freezer until firm, about 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/177 degrees C.
Using your hands, shape about 1 tablespoon of dough into a 1-inch ball. Roll the ball into confectioners sugar 2 times. Let the balls sit in icing sugar as you proceed with the rest of the cookies. They should be completely covered so you can't see any cookie dough.
Place on a parchment lined (or silpat) cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Bake about 12-15 minutes until the cookies are cracked but not browned on the bottom.
Allow to cool.
http://loveandduckfat.com/chocolate-espresso-crinkle-cookie-recipe/
The Thanksgiving countdown is upon us and I’m completely unprepared. I’m not cooking Thanksgiving this year, because we will be visiting family, but it’s my first year with a food blog. What does that mean? Apparently, I need to be posting gorgeous, exciting new Thanksgiving recipes like mad. I’m looking at my fellow bloggers (those ones with much more experienced than me) and they are clearly on a mission. A well planned out mission.
I don’t have one of those, so I’m left feeling a little inadequate with my sad little banana & chocolate breakfast cookies. They don’t have pumpkin, cranberries or nutmeg (but, please, feel free to add those ingredients). These cookies are filled with healthy bits that taste like not-healthy bits and they are meant to be eaten on any regular day. Filled with banana, whole wheat, flax meal, chia seeds, nuts and chocolate chips, they have a soft, cake-like texture and are full surprises in each bite. I make these differently every time. Sometimes I add almond butter, protein powder, raisins or dried cherries. Other times, I pack them with lots of dark chocolate chips. That’s the beauty of this recipe. It’s forgiving. You get about 30 cookies, and they freeze well. Make a bunch and you have breakfast cookies to take with you to work, stick in the kid’s lunches or just enjoy for dessert.
I promise next year to post a bazillion holiday recipes. In a well-thought out fashion. I’ll start planning now. For now, we eat cookies.
Banana & chocolate breakfast cookies
Ingredients
Method
Preheat oven to 350° F/ 180° C
In a small mixing bowl, combine flax meal and water. Set aside.
Mash the bananas with a fork until they are smooth. Add the nut butter, coconut oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract and eggs. Stir until combined.
Add the whole wheat flour, flax meal, baking soda, chia seeds and salt. Stir until well combined. Stir in the oatmeal, chocolate chips, nuts, seeds and/or dried fruit.
Drop by the spoonful onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 8-12 minutes. The bottom of the cookie should be very lightly browned on the bottom.
This recipe for homemade gourmet s’more cookies comes from Mimi Arcese McCann, and is Love and Duck Fat’s very first guest post. I asked Mimi to submit a recipe because she is an incredible baker, making delicious and intricate cookies, cakes, tarts and other goodies available through her Etsy shop, The Luscious Loaf Bakery.
Once again another fall is upon us and time to spend with family. I am often taken aback by how much I miss spending time with my family and the memories made every fall on Thanksgiving at my dad’s cabin. Many years have past since we had our first camping out Thanksgiving, freezing in 40 degree weather in tents in the back yard. We were not the camping type and the phrase “Glamping” wasn’t even born yet but there we were tents, blow up mattresses, blankets from home, hats gloves and all the finer accouterments out in the vast wilderness called Dunnellon. The sky was dark the stars were out and were in agony! But never has there been a more reminisced over group of memories as on that holiday. Our family has grown and kids have gotten bigger, smaller ones have been added, and we still all love to talk about our adventures in camping and how we can’t wait to do it again.
When I opened my own Bakery the first item I decided to make was S’mores. I remembered how we were all huddled around the campfire pit roasting marshmallows and making ooey gooey sandwiches that warmed our bellies and made the freezing evening a little bit warmer. From the eldest to the youngest not one of us escaped without having warm chocolate and toasty marshmallow smudges all over our faces.
Homemade s’more cookie recipe
I wanted to remember this evening the whole year round and find a way to bring myself back to that magical time filled with love and warm memories anytime I wanted. I am never one for just staying with the mediocre and had to just take the idea of S’mores to the next level. Thus was born the gourmet S’more. Homemade Graham crackers, gourmet chocolates and a toasty marshmallow, the possibilities are endless and the memories abound.
Homemade s’more cookie recipe
With this sure fire S’more recipe you too can have as much fun as we did and can surely create some memories of your own.
Homemade s’more cookie recipe
Graham Cookie recipe adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookies
Ingredients
Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together both flours, wheat germ, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a bowl.
2. Put butter, brown sugar, and honey in a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, 2-3 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture. Mix until well combined.
3. Turn dough onto a floured surface and divide in half. Roll out each piece between waxed paper and using wooden dowels ¼ inch thick. Using a cookie cutter of your choice and cut dough into shapes and place on a parchment line baking sheet. Place sheets in the refrigerator while working with other half of dough.
4. Bake, rotating halfway through, until dark golden brown, 8 to 9 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough. Let cool on sheets 5 to 10 minutes; transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.
5. When ready to prepare s’mores line half of the cookies on parchment lined baking sheet. Place oven rack to closest to broiler heat. Place one s’moremallow on top of each cookie, cut and trim to fit on cookie in a single even layer.
6. Place other half of cookies on another parchment lined baking sheet and set aside.
7. Place cookies with marshmallows in oven and allow to toast. This will take 1 to 2 minutes. (I keep door to oven slightly open so I can watch this carefully because marshmallows will burn easily.
8. When toasty remove cookies and toast other pans. When all marshmallows are toasted turn off oven and place other cookies on baking sheets in oven for 1 minute. Place one half of Hershey chocolate bar on top of each marshmallow and top with naked cookie. Press gently and watch for melting chocolate. Enjoy if you like them melty and toasty. (If you like them a little more solid you can place them in fridge for a few minute.)
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