Easter Treats

I was a baking crazy lady last week. My dad's side of the family has a crawfish boil on Good Friday, and I made "slutty brownies." Sorry there is no picture. They were a big hit. I thought they were OK, but that's because I'm not really a brownie person. Except for cookie brownie. Long live cookie brownie!

I knew I was making Hummingbird Cake for dessert for Easter. But then I saw this post on the same blog as the cake recipe and I knew what had to be done.

Homemade marshmallows are surprising easy to make. Mine got a little sweaty. Not sure why, but they still tasted great- especially when they were sandwiched between homemade graham crackers dipped in Ghiradelli chocolate. If you are also making cream cheese icing and you choose to spread it on the plain graham cracker, you would be making a very wise and tasty decision.

The cake was absolutely delicious and easy to make. If you are wondering and not interested in clicking the link, hummingbird cake has cinnamon, pecans, bananas, and pineapple in it. If you aren't into that sort of thing but you like cream cheese icing- then take note of this recipe because the icing will definitely make you go to your grave... and come back again.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Yes, you read that correctly. Just when I thought the chocolate chip cookie dough amazingness could get any better than the frozen chocolate chip cookie dough balls, Annie's Eats introduces the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake.

I guess I mentioned at some point that our awful stove's oven was on the fritz. This happened in my first trimester which wasn't a problem because the smell of baking chicken was gross and I didn't want any kind of sweets. I also mostly didn't feel like cooking at all. Anyway, we finally got a new stove last week. Having four burners is awesome. Don't ever take your four burners for granted.

We had friends over for dinner on Saturday and I was excited to bake something. I wanted to try this mousse cake, but I would have had to start in the morning, and we spent a couple hours starting our baby registry. So I decided on these cupcakes, and man, was it a good decision (as you can tell by the label designation of "Go to Your Grave").

The actual cake part tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. Then you fill the cupcake with an eggless chocolate chip cookie dough, and THEN YOU ICE IT WITH ICING THAT TASTES LIKE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

They are especially tasty with a glass of milk.

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Icing

For this post and possibly others in the future I'm going to add the label "Go to Your Grave" along with the usual "Cooking with the Perrys". That way you'll know that you should make it. That is, of course, if you have the time to go to your grave and come back again.

I had been wanting to recreate the banana cupcake with Nutella buttercream icing that I had for my birthday in Houston. I couldn't find Nutella at Whole Foods and since it's the only thing I needed, I decided to try Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. You will never want to settle for Nutella again, although you have to admit it takes way less time to type. It was a little pricey, but I used about a tablespoon or so in my steel cut oatmeal every morning for a few weeks, and it was so worth it. So, so worth it.

I decided that I would wait to make these cupcakes until my little brother got into LSU as a celebration of his awesomeness. Good thing he is awesome and got accepted into LSU because these cupcakes were perfection. The actual cake part was from Martha Stewart's Banana Cupcakes  and the icing was pretty much a basic buttercream with the Chocolate Hazelnut Butter mixed in to taste. I don't think you need to add any kind of flavoring like almond or vanilla extract. You can find actual recipes for Nutella Buttercream icings, but keep in mind that the recipe makes 12 cupcakes so you don't need a lot of icing.