Hoppy Easter: Carrot Cake Truffles Recipe for Serious Eats

How do you capture the Easter Bunny?

Not with carrots, that's for sure: way too healthy, and if there's one life lesson that holds true, it's that you catch more flies with honey.

That is to say, try your luck with these little nuggets of delight known as Carrot Cake Truffles, inspired by the basic cake pop recipe from my bloggy BFF Bakerella. Comprised of dense carrot cake mixed with cream cheese to form a decadent filling, a coating of high-quality white chocolate adds a sweet finish, making for a hoppy, er, happy eating experience. Even if you don't capture the Easter Bunny, your happiness is pretty much guaranteed.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

So Corny: Easter Candy Corn Recipe for Serious Eats

It's time to let you in on a little secret: Easter Corn is the same thing as Candy Corn, but colored differently. And like Candy Corn, it tastes better when made at home.

Of course, you can make the most of this festive treat by coloring it creatively. Instead of tricolors, why not go for five stripes of pastel sweetness? And, going even further, why not serve it in overturned baby-food jars to form the cutest enchanted forest-style terrarium treats you've ever seen? With all that magic, you might just give the Easter Bunny a run for its money.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Devilishly Delicious: Deviled Cadbury Creme Eggs Recipe for Serious Eats

It's the most wonderful time of year, when Cadbury Creme Eggs proliferate in food and drug stores, like sweet little sugarbombs just waiting to be hatched in your mouth.

Last year, I employed these sweet treats to create a masterpiece called Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict.This year, here's another classic (savory) egg dish reinterpreted in sweet form using these fondant-filled nuggets of joy: Cadbury Creme Deviled Eggs. Extremely easy to make and very sweet to eat, these are a sure-fire way to kick off Easter Candy season in style.

Note: To ensure that your "yolks" aren't runny, chill your Creme Eggs for about an hour before slicing them in half. This will ensure that the filling doesn't run all over.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Sweet Seconds: Leftover Easter Candy Cookies for Serious Eats

In my mind, Easter candy falls into one of two categories. There are the show pieces—the chocolate bunny, Cadbury Creme eggs, and those addictive Reese's peanut butter eggs, for instance—which tend to disappear rapidly. And then there's the filler—the jelly beans, the Peeps, and those little malted eggs, which look pretty in the basket but aren't consumed quite as quickly.

But I feel for the filler, really I do, and so I tried my hand at designing a desirable delivery vehicle for these assorted pastel leftovers: the Leftover Easter Candy Cookie. I started out with a basic drop cookie recipe and added in a cup of assorted leftovers, including Easter corn, jelly beans, cut-up Peeps, and malted egg candies.

To read the full entry and find the recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Sweet Sandwich: Peeps Fluffernutter for Serious Eats

Oh, don't act surprised. It was really only a matter of time before Peeps, those pillowy pastel harbingers of spring, met the classic marshmallowy sandwich called Fluffernutter.

What may surprise and delight you, however, is that in my version, the peanut butter-and-Peeps mixture is sandwiched between two hefty slices of pound cake rather than white bread, to form a delectably decadent dessert sandwich.

The pound cake works beautifully on several levels—the sweetness works harmoniously with the Peeps, and the rich butteriness is perfect with the peanut butter. In fact, I'd like to humbly submit that it just may be the perfect lunchtime followup to a breakfast of Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict.

For the full writeup and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Hot (Cross) Buns at Essential Baking Company, Seattle

Want some hot buns?

Well, if you're in Seattle, you're in luck, because Essential Baking Co. has got hot buns--hot cross buns, that is--aplenty. Per an update from EBC:

Easter is this weekend and Hot Cross Buns are a traditional English Easter food historically enjoyed on Good Friday. The Essential Baking Company's  legendary, slightly sweet version features a rich, velvety crumb, currants and the trademark glaze topping. Hot Cross Buns are perfect warmed and served with breakfast, brunch or afternoon tea.

EBC's legendary Hot Cross Buns will be available at select grocery stores in the greater Seattle area and The Essential Bakery Cafés in Wallingford (1604 North 34th Street - 206-545-0444) and Madison (2719 East Madison -206-328-0078) now through June 15. 

For more information on how you can get your hot (cross!) buns for Easter, visit essentialbaking.com.