Sweet Easter Treats

Not only do I love Holidays, I think I single-handedly keep Hallmark in business.

I'm not kidding.

I get personal phone calls from the manager when there's a big sale going on.
Seriously, no joke.

Easter is one of those Holidays that Hallmark exploits with it's animated plush chickies, glass egg ornaments and singing bunnies... but who can deny how cute and appealing they are?
Although, depending on your religion, you know the "real" meaning of Easter...

That being said, here's the Easter/Spring cake I created to share with my coworkers.
(I'm employed full-time in the fashion industry but love to decorate cakes in my not-so-spare time)

I used a 6" double cake that I had in the freezer which was already covered in Satin Ice ivory colored fondant. It's yellow cake with milk chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream crumb coat. All decorations were cut from rolled fondant except the pink royal icing "Happy Easter."


I also made these chocolate covered Oreos.
Well, after a failed attempt to make the first batch (I unintentionally ate all the cookie sandwiches) I bought another package and completed the project using a Wilton chocolate mold and white chocolate candy melts. Yum!

Here's the spread of treats my coworkers brought to share...

This is a rather weak display compared to our usual feast, but it was Good Friday and many people took the day off to spend extra time with their families. In spite of that, we had contributions of cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto, flower-shaped pound cake pops, pistachio cake, chocolate and brown sugar covered Matzo, bunny corn and lemon cake pops shaped like carrots and cupcakes.
Still quite impressive!
I love working with such creative people - they make such delicious treats!!


Okay, I was debating whether or not to post this next photo.
Here goes...
My mom and I decided to revisit the Easter Basket cake design this year - with little success. Firstly, we baked each layer individually because the "good" round cake pans were mysteriously missing... this resulted in two very uneven layers of cake. Then we realized the cute speckled M&Ms we had were the peanut-filled ones... I figured they would be too large to stick to the thin layer of store-bought vanilla icing around the sides but we gave it our best shot.

The icing was setting nicely but the weather was warm and my mom accidentally covered the cake before the icing had crusted... later I checked on it only to find that the majority of the M&Ms fell off. Oops...
I called my mom (from my cell phone - to the house phone) to inform her of the cake-tastrophe and she ran to help me put it back together. By put it back together, I mean my mom literally wiped off the messy frosting from each candy with paper towels while I did my best to reapply them. In the end, the M&Ms didn't stay put but at least it tasted fantastic!

[We used devil's food chocolate cake with vanilla icing (my all-time fave) for the base, speckled peanut M&Ms around the "basket" sides with colored coconut and Whoppers chocolate-covered malted milk Robin Eggs for the basket filling. The basket handle was fashioned out of aluminum foil and white ribbon.]