Chocolate-dipped Strawberry Carrots for Easter

Hoppy Easter everyone!  Last night my friend Sarah came over for strawberry dipping. She had seen these adorable orange chocolate-dipped strawberries on the cover of the Harry and David catalog and so we set out to recreate them. Also Sarah HAD given up sugar for lent but let's just say the fast was over a tad early!!!

Harry and David Version:

So this is what we did.  Some notes ahead of time.
1. Get medium strawberries and if you are picking them yourself, make sure to keep the leaves and even some stem on them to grasp while dipping.
2. Wash and dry thoroughly before dipping. Bring to room temp if they have been refrigerated.
3. Set out cookie sheets with parchment for drying dipped strawberries
4. We got about 24 strawberries out of a double recipe of chocolate plus a bunch of peanut butter filled pretzels
5. Making the little carrot lines seemed difficult.  Read on..

Ok here is the recipe we used for making the double recipe of chocolate: 2lb white chocolate morsels+ 2tablespoons shortening.  Place in double boiler over med heat to melt and stir.  Add food coloring to desired color.  Don't bother using toothpicks to hold strawberries.  They will just pull right out. Grasp strawberry by the stem and dip to cover. We found the chocolate in the double boiler cooled pretty quickly so some of our berries were a tad lumpy (but still delicious!) and you have to stir the chocolate and dip quickly.  Place on parchment to dry.

We contemplated making the carrot lines but decided against it.  We felt like if the chocolate were melty enough to drizzle from a pastry bag or snipped ziplock that it would be too hot to handle and if it were cool enough to handle it wouldn't be drizzly enough.  Maybe we could have used a fork to splatter the chocolate on but it certainly wouldn't be very controlled.

Since we are heading to a friend's house for Easter, I decided to make a Carrot Garden Dirt Pie.  I used this recipe for the "dirt." I've forgotten where i read this recipe originally but there are recipes all over the internet that are pretty similar.

14oz-16oz oreos
8oz cream cheese
1/2 butter softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2tsp vanilla
5.9 oz pkg instant pudding chocolate (or vanilla)
3 cups milk
1 pkg cool whip

1. Use food processor to chop oreos (cream and all) into small pieces.
2. Cream together cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla.
3. In large bowl add milk to pudding and mix together.  Fold in cool whip.
4. Add butter mixture to Pudding mixture and mix well.

Alternate layers of cookies and pudding in a large glass pan. Top with layer of cookie dirt. I used a deep dish casserole dish and it just barely fit everything!

To decorate, I used a wine stopper to depress cone-shaped depressions in the "dirt" to set the "carrots" into.   added some gummy worms for fun!  Enjoy!!

Easter fun - Turmeric and Lemon frosted Cupcakes

What? a non-scrapbooking post?  LOL. Yep this week i'd like to get back to some lifestyle stuff- crafts and such.  Last night I had to make a bunch of cupcakes for our annual Spring Fling which is an egg hunt, crafts and activities for our mothers of multiples club. I knew I wanted to make an easy bunny rabbit but wasn't sure about the frosting. I am on a natural food coloring kick right now so I thought I would see how turmeric colored and flavored some cool whip I had.  It was a beautiful yellow shade and the flavor needed - something! well I had a lemon hanging around and I thought that maybe those two flavors might melt together pretty well.  So I squeezed (squoze?) it and added just the tiniest little amount of lemon juice to the whip. It did very slightly curdle the whip which gives it a fun texture, and it tasted - well - pretty good. So if you want to replicate it, try adding the turmeric slowly to some cool whip or other whipped cream frosting, and mix well and taste as you go. Then add lemon juice a very small amount at a time until you get the taste to your liking. Ok I haven't seen Turmeric Lemon Frosting anywhere else on the internet so if you come across something, i'd love to see it.

Here is a picture of three bunny cupcakes I made - the one on the left is just cool whip. The middle is cool whip with just lemon juice and the right cupcake has the turmeric lemon frosting.  I used the pastel candy corn as ears and yogurt covered raisins (in easter colors) for the mouths (unfortunately neither of these have natural dyes - only fake dye...ugh).

And of course we saw the Easter Bunny with just about expected reactions. I hope they are not scarred for life.

I love lemon (tarts!) and this week's layouts

 I just made the most delish lemon tart and I just had to share it. I pretty much followed the recipe from the Smitten Kitchen for the Whole Lemon Tart and the Great Unshrinkable Tart Shell but I made it in a pie dish  and instead of cornstarch I used flour. Oh and my lemon was HUGE and it still came out delicious.  Here is a link to the recipes and here are my foodie picts.

Tart shell before filling

before baking - notice it looks separated but it still came out smooth after baking

the finished yumminess

And here are some layouts I finished this week.  The first is of my husband's Tough Mudder that he did in early February.  He is with his teammates Keith and Brian.  It was a cold and raw day but he survived with only a few bruises and some VERY dirty socks and shoes to show for it. Oh and a particpant T-shirt. SCORE! Picts courtesy of MarathonFoto and elements by Lia Scrap Only for Boys Kit and Kelsey Inspired Studios Alpha from An Innocent Heart Collection

Lia Scrap (Only for Boys) and Kelsey Inspired Studios Alpha from An Innocent Heart Collection

The next is a picture of my cousin dressed up as an FBI agent for Halloween. I thought it would be fun to blow up the badge and hollow out the center to make it a frame.  Elements by Trixie Scraps and Melissa Bennett Designs Cops and Robbers Collab (retired) and photo courtesy of E. Foxen

 And the third is an Easter-y layout of my cousin. I used some new elements from The Urban Fairy including the Just Love, Flutter Fields, Love Me Painted Easter and photo courtesy of E. Foxen.

Cap'n Crunch "Rice Krispie" Treats

I don't eat sugary cereal.  I was raised on cheerios and oat bran.  But sometimes you just need a little bit of fun in your life.  So while I was thinking of dessert ideas for the boys' upcoming 1st birthday party, I ran across Trix rice krispie treats on Pinterest.  I thought they looked interesting and they reminded me of the dot pattern in the front of the Very Hungry Caterpillar Book...something like this...

photo courtesy of Cravings of a Lunatic

Eric Carle's Dots

 I was intrigued.  I thought maybe I could make the treats and then use a butterfly cookie cutter to make them into butterfly treats.  I decided I needed a test run of the recipe (of course i do!) and for some reason the name TRIX escaped me when I ran to the store but I DID find Cap'n Crunch ALL Berries.  I decided they fit the bill - round, colored, sugary.  They'll do.  I also modified the recipe found at Cravings of a Lunatic as follows for an 8x8 pan of very thick treats.

1 bag (450ish grams) marshmallows
5 cups Cap'n Crunch All berries cereal
1/4 cup butter

Put butter and marshmallows in a bowl.  Microwave 1 minute and stir.  Microwave another minute and stir to make sure all butter is melted.  Add in 5 cups cereal and mix to coat well.  Spray an 8x8 pan generously with pan spray and also spray the back of a spatula or spoon.  Dump cereal into pan and flatten with spatula.  Refrigerate until solidified.

Here is the finished product.  It was pretty tasty, I'll have to admit, and very sweet.  ALMOST too sweet.  And a lot of the marshmallow ended up at the bottom, probably because the mixture was a bit too warm when I put it in the pan.  These are obviously too thick for cookie cutter-ing so the next batch will be in a 9x13 pan. I am also feeling like they are missing some yellow so might have to throw in some Kicks or use the Trix or mix everything together!!  What do you think??

Permission was granted to use individual photos from other websites. 

Thanks to Kim at Cravings of a Lunatic!!

All other photos are property of www.experimentmom.blogspot.com. Please contact me at jenniferlgardner1@gmail.com for permission to use.