A few Easter ideas.

Well recovering from this surgery took longer than I thought it would, but I am feeling about 90%. But, I wanted to make sure I gave you a few Easter ideas before Easter is upon us. I tried to post this last night and this morning but, blogger wouldn't post it for some reason. I guess better late than never. Here are some Easter cakes, cupcakes, and cookies that I made in the past and I will tell you tips and tricks of how to make them.

These cupcakes are cute and really simple. I used an Easter egg cookie cutter and cut out some different colored fondant eggs (I put tylose in the fondant so it can harden). I set them aside so they dry (a couple hours the thicker they are the longer they take). Once they are dry you brush a tiny bit of water on them and sprinkle sanding sugar and let them dry again. Pipe your cupcakes and insert them in and serve. If you wait too long to serve them they may droop a little becasue the frosting can soften them. And do not cover them because they will really go soft. If you want you could pipe frosting behind them to hold them up if you want to to them in advance for the next day.

I have an easter basket cookie cutter and boy do I love it! For the top of the basket I took two strings of fondant and twisted them together and attaced them to the cookie with water. For the base of the basket I used a basket weve roller and rolled over the fondant and cut it with the cookie cutter. Since I didn't need the handle I just cut that off with a knife. Attach that with a little water. Then I cut some different colored fondant eggs and cut off part with the knife so they are the correct height. I then made the flowers (but don't attach until after the grass) I have a little flower cutter for the base, but if yours are rounded just pinch them to points. Then I took a small ball of yellow fondant and made a hole with a small paint brush. You can widen the top by leaning the top of the paint brush out. Then attach the centers to the flower with a tiny dab of water. For the grass I used the grass/hair tip which is a 233, but you could use a 2 tip and do little strings of grass it just takes longer and since I have the grass tip I use it. Attach the flower to the grass while the frosting is still wet. (if you are going to wrap the cookies in celophane then you should pipe it with royal icing. You can do buttercream, but make sure it is a crusting one and they might be a tiny smear where it touches the celophane.

I love doing cookie bouquets. They work great as table center pieces as well. Ok from left to right I will tell you how to do them. The butterfly is from a kit that I bought a long time at Country Kitchen Sweet Art. It comes with all different sizes of cookie cutters and has texture mats to make the cool butterfly shapes. To use it you roll out your fondant a little thicker than what you want, put the texture mat on top and roll over it with a rolling pin to add the texture. Then use the same cookie cutter that you made the cookie with and cut it out and attach with water. Here is a link to wear I bought it. http://www.countrykitchensa.com/catalog/product.aspx?productId=636151 The large bunny face. I use the same cookie cutter to cut out the base of the face as I used to cut out the cookie. Then I take a few balls of white fondant. A pea size for the teeth, slighly larger for the eyes and a bouncy ball size for the cheeks. Split the two larger balls in half and roll into two circles and flatten with your fingers. I put the cheeks on first and then lift them slightly to put the teeth in. For the teeth I flatten the ball and use a toothpick to make a line in the center. Make the top part flat where it will meet with the cheeks. Attach with water. Then I take a pea size pink fondant and make a nose. I put it inbetween the two cheeks and use the side of a knife to flatten the top (the part by the eyes not the physical top by you) of the nose. Then I add the eyes. I used a food color marker for the black part of the eyes. Last come the pink part of the ears. I just eyeballed that and cut with a knife and attached with water.

The Easter egg is the easiest to do. You use the cookie cutter to cut out a base of what ever color you want and attach to the cookie. Then cut a couple more of a different color. Cut them in half and then make some jagged edges. I used a knife and cut some Vs out of them. Make the top one smaller than the bottom and I like to make them so there is some space in the middle so I cut them shorter than half before the V's. Attach with water.

For the bunny on the bottom use the same cookie cutter for the white base and attach with water. Free hand the ear and attach with water. And add a little nose. You can also add some more tail if you wanted to and use a star tip like a 16 or 21 piping tip to give texture.

Now for the sticks I usually bake my cookies with them in. To do that make sure your cookie is thick, thicker than the stick and twist in (you have to twist) until it is about half way up. I flip over the cookie and if I see the stick a little I add a tiny bit more cookie dough. Then bake. If you don't want to bake with them you can attach the stick with royal icing and let it dry. Or you can tape the stick to the celophane

I love this little lamb and it is really easy to make. The body is made from two 8 inch cake layers with one layer of filling. Then it was crumb coated and covered with fondant (this is a great cake to make if you are learning how to cover cakes with fondant because if you make a mistake you can cover it with a curl of frosting. You also need some ho ho's for the legs(or you can use fondant). I wrap some white fondant around a ho ho ( I cut 1/4 off so it isn't too long and I curve the cut so it attaches to the cake well (just use a little frosting to attach) leaving the uncut end of the ho ho visible for the hoof. Don't forget to make a cute tail. I took a small bouncy ball size ball of fondant and rolled it into a tear drop shape (hold your hands in a "V" shape and it makes a tear drop out of what you are rolling) then flatten it out. Then you can either leave it like that or add some texture to it by taking a star tip like the 21 and just poke it all over. Then make a small hole in the body where you want to insert the tail and put a little water in it and insert the pointed small side of the tail in the hole and I made a cute little bow for ontop of the tail.

The head is made from two 4 inch cake layers with one layer of filling. Then cover it in skin or ivory colord fondant. Place a layer of white around the face adhearing with a little water (if it is easier for you you can put the eyes, nose and mouth first or just put a small mark with a toothpick where they will go).

I then did the facial features. I used a gumpaste knife tool for the nose, but you could use a toothpick if you don't have one (just go over the area a few times to make the impression deeper, but don't cut it just imprint the lines). I also used different sized piping tips (the opposite side of the of the piping tip that you normally use. You can use a 1M tip for the white and a regular tip or a larger bottom tip for the blue and black. Just stretch out the blue portion a litle so it shows under the black. I like using circle cutters or piping tips so they are uniform in size.) Then make your binki. You don't want it to be too big or the weight of it might pull it out. Use a circle for the base and then take a small ball of pink fondant, flatten it and poke a hole through it. The make one edge flat and lengthen slightly. I inserted a toothpick, but you could use a spaghetti noodle if you want it to be edible. And slide it into the side of the cake. I like to use sugar glue to attach because it is really sticky and will help it adhear (if you want to know how to make it then look under recipes in the gallery), but if you can't make that use water or take a little pice of pink fondant and get it really wet and sticky and use that to adhear the binki.

Now for the ears it is best if you knead a little tylose powder into the fondant, but it can be done without. I just free handed some ears with my cake exacto knife with some 1/8 inch thick fondant. If you want to they can be a little thicker, just don't make them too thick or they might fall off. Then I cut smaller pink pieces and attached them in the ears with water then attached them to the head.

Put some support dowels (since it is a 4 inch cake you probably only need two, but I normally do a minimum of three) in the body cake just below where you are going to put the head. You want the dowels or bubble tea straws to be flush with the fondant to support the weight of the head so it doesn't mush the bottom cake and make it sag. Then put a little frosting on top of the dowels and the cake area where the cake will be to help the cake stick to the card board (there is a small cake cardboard that is cut to the same size of the cake under each tier of cake).

Last you pipe some swirls on the lamb to give it some fur. I would make sure to put some where the ears attach to the head (it will help hold them on) and if there is anything you need to hide like where the head meets the body you might need one there. And you are done!

I hope you try some out!