Easter Bunny Paper Candy Pouches

It’s time to fill up those Easter Egg string baskets I made for the kiddos last year.  Since I’m sure they will be covered in the chocolate bunny category, I wanted to give them another bunny filled with jelly beans.  And the Easter bunny paper candy pouch idea was born.  

I saw the concept of sewn candy pouches around Christmas time through a pin from Peppermint Plum.  See, how cute at these?  

But I wanted to make it Easter special.  So I found an image of a bunny I liked and cut out two bunnies.  It’s best to do cut both at once so all the edges match up. 

Then stitch up those bunnies. 

I left a generous opening in the fluffy tail region so I could stuff the pouch with jelly beans. 

Make sure to work them into the ears and feet.  Then just stitch closed. 

I went with a light green thread to coordinate with Jack’s light green basket, but it does draw attention to the stitching!  So OCD folks, beware.

I needed a final touch to top off my bunny and decided a little pom pom yarn tail was just the ticket.  I used the fork technique to create my pom poms.  You can find a good example of this technique here. 

Just a little dab of hot glue to stick the tail and I was done!  Love my adorable bunny and I’ve enjoyed eating the extra jelly beans that I just couldn’t fit in the bunny…..

–Martta

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Easter Bunny S’mores – Williams Sonoma Knockoff

When I saw these in the Williams Sonoma catalog, I knew I had to have them.  But there is no way that I’m $25 plus outrageous Williams Sonoma shipping to get them.  They are just graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallow – I can make that!

So I scoured the web to find some recipes for graham crackers (Did you know you could DIY those?) and marshmallows.  I found a lovely write of of graham crackers at 101cookbooks.com and marshmallows at smittenkitchen.com.  So I set to work.  Surprisingly, I had almost all of these ingredients on hand, the only thing I had to buy was the bunny cookie cutter.

this graham cracker recipe makes a wonderfully tender dough.  It is a bit sticky, but not overly so.  Just have plenty of flour on hand for rolling it out.

I chilled according to directions and then rolled out and started with my bunnies.

Here are my crackers docked and covered with cinnamon sugar.  Yum!  If you choose not to dock your crackers, you will have a few puff ups here and there.  These crackers don’t spread too much so I actually ended up baking with 8 to a tray after this first batch.

OK, what are you the chilling police?  So I only chilled my crackers for 10-15 minutes rather than the 30-45 recommended.  Who has time for that kind of chilling!?  I also baked these on the center rack rather than rearranging my oven.  Here they are at 25 minutes….can you tell I was in the other room working on a blog post and didn’t smell them burning until there was smoke in my kitchen?  Hmmm, I recommend 10-12 minutes of baking time on these crackers.  You want them to be firm and not soft when they come out of the oven so you can get that great graham cracker crunch.  Don’t forget, half your bunnies need to face left and half your bunnies need to face right so they can pair up later….I didn’t think about this until about two batches of left facing bunnies had already been baked!

As you can see, I recovered from the burnt bunny incident to create a whole wonderful batch of crackers.  Gather up your chocolate, it’s time to take a dip! You can temper your own chocolate, but for me Wilton’s candy melts are just faster and my friends and family enjoy the taste.

I used a pie plate for my chocolate because there is plenty of room for the bunnies.  As I went on, I switched to a smaller bowl and just used my offset spatula to cover the graham crackers.  Send your bunny for a swim in chocolate.

As you can see, smoothing with the offset spatula gives is a “delightfully homemade” look rather than the smooth chocolate enrobing of WS.  After making a couple of batches of these, I’ve found it’s better to cover the back side of the cracker, let it set and then cover the front and sides.  You’ll end up with smoother coverage overall.  Don’t forget, half your bunnies need to face left and half your bunnies need to face right so they can pair up later.

On to the guts!  It’s time to make marshmallow.  I was a bit intimated by the the  notion of making marshmallows at first.  But after finding out how easy and delicious they are, I might never buy them from the store again.  To give you an idea of time commitment, I could match a batch of marshmallows and graham cracker dough in about an hour.  Not too bad really.  Again, I’ve got all these ingredients on hand in my house.

This is what happens when your camera gets to close to the steam when you are taking pictures of the candy thermometer.

I’m absolutely fascinated by the marshmallow process.  In minutes it goes from a liquid sugar mess to….

fluffy marshmallow goodness.

You’re not going to get it all out of the mixing bowl, don’t try.  But work quickly and you’ll get most of it into the pan.  Then enjoy quality control testing of the remainder.  Plus, since it’s mostly just sugar, it cleans up in a snap with a bit of water.

Mmm lovely pan of marshmallows, I must wait for you to chill.

Once set, you are going to have to persuade the marshmallow out of the pan.  Just go slow and be prepared to get your hand sticky.

Let the cutting begin.  Oil your cutter with canola oil before you get started and in between every bunny.  It make it easier to pop the marshmallow from the cutter.

Dust with a bit of extra sugar and shake in the pan to cover the edges.

Before marrying up with your chocolate covered graham crackers, dust off the extra sugar.

Add a bit of chocolate glue and make your sandwiches.

One left bunny and one right bunny later and….

Mmmm one giant bunny s’more!

But I didn’t stop there.  A lot of my taste testers said that there was just too much chocolate and it overwhelmed the graham cracker.  So I did a few where I only coated the backside with chocolate.  This leaves the front open to all kinds of personalization!

Perfect for gifts, here they are all wrapped up with Hoppy Easter labels!

–Martta

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Make an Egg Shaped Easter Basket From String

With Easter so late this year it’s giving me plenty of time to think up tons of fun Easter crafts.  This particular basket is from the way back machine.  One of the ladies I used to baby sit for would make these every year for friends and family.  I took the concept and added a little spin all my own to come up with this year’s Easter basket.

So it’s time to break out the glue gun and get crafty!

Supplies:

Crochet thread (I purchased 1,000 yards for two balloons and it was way too much)

Fabric stiffener such as Stiffy

Bowl

Plastic wrap

Tape

Disposable bowl or cupcake tray

Balloon

1/4 Yard coordinating fabric

Weighty filler such as beans or rice

Glue Gun

Ribbon

Scissors

Sewing Machine

Let’s get started!  First prepare your work area.  Line your bowl with the plastic wrap.  As I discovered (after I had glue all over the place!) you might want to tape down the edges of that plastic wrap to the bowl.  If you care about the table you’re working on, you’ll need to cover that too.  I find that a trash bag works perfectly.

Now give your lungs a small workout and inflate a balloon.  Remember, you’re going for an egg shape so don’t over inflate.

Drop your string into your prepared bowl and give it a bath in Stiffy.  You want to make sure the string is saturated, but not in a pool of Stiffy otherwise you’ll be flinging that stuff all over your kitchen as you make your egg.

Wrap the end of the string around the top of the ballon to get started.  This will hold that first piece of slippery string in place until you can get enough in place that it will hold itself.

Continue wrapping your egg until you’ve got complete coverage.  This basket took me about a half hour.  You’ll want to add more Stiffy along the way when you get to string that isn’t saturated.

With your masterpiece complete, set the egg in a bowl or cupcake try to dry for 24 hours.  Half way through the drying process, turn your egg on its side so the bottom can dry throughly.

After the egg has had plenty of drying time, break out your pin and pop the balloon inside – I generally puncture it right next to the balloon top.

If you can, pull the top out, but don’t force it – you’ll have plenty of chance to get it out later.

Leave the sad, deflated balloon inside, we’ll grab him when we cut open the basket.

So the fundamental problem with making an egg shaped basket is that eggs don’t stand up on their own……

When my neighbor made these she would put them in a silver disposable bowl and try to dress it up, but I just never really liked that.  So I thought about it a bit and decided to put a weight in the bottom to see if it would stand the basket up – just like those weighted inflatable punching dummies we had when we were kids.  Don’t tell me you didn’t ever smack one of those and have it rebound right in your face!  So I grabbed a plate from my cupboard to use as a circle pattern.  Of course the size you need is going to vary depending on how how large your egg is, but for reference this plate is 8″ in diameter and I used a 5/8″ seam allowance.

No-Sew Cheater Alert: I bet you could just grab a zip-loc bag, throw some rice or beans in there and cover it up with lots of grass if you don’t have a sewing machine at home.

Sew two circles together leaving an opening for filling.

Clip the curves to take out bulk and turn the disk right side out.

Fill your weight to the desired fullness.  You can use rice, beans, or whatever you’ve got around for filling.  Here I’m using the lentils I used as a pie weight ONE time two years ago….why do I keep this junk?!  Oh yeah so I can make Easter baskets for Jack and Caroline….

Once you’ve completed operation fill, hand sew the opening of the weight closed.

Now for the drama, you’re going to have to cut into that egg.  You gotta be able to fill your egg basket right?  There is no correct way to do this, but I will say, start small.  You can always make the opening bigger, but you can’t make it smaller!

Here’s what I came up with, not perfectly circular, and just the right size for the box of Legos I got each of the kids.  Now is your chance to grab that balloon that was sitting in the basket.

Throw the weight in there and check out that magic!  Sweet, it looks like a little green yolk in there  And it totally stands up the basket.  I’m not going to lie, I felt like a genius at this moment.

It’s time to break out the glue gun and get crafty!  I like to line the edges of the opening with ribbon because they can be a bit pokey and I want to re-inforce that edge.

Since this basket is for Jack, I went for a more understated bow.

But you can get as crazy as you like with the ribbon.  For Caroline’s basket above I used purple ribbon and wrapped it all the way around the egg a la the classic sugar egg design.  I hope you have fun with this project!

– Martta

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