Love this idea… Should definitely come up with some variations using other types of Peeps :)

From Babble:

Until this Sunday, when the kids and I dressed them in little tuxedoes of white and dark chocolate.  Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough of them. I’m not embarrassed to admit I let each of the kids eat one, while I bit the crunchy little tuxedos off of a handful of Peeps all by my lonesome.  Turns out, plain old Peeps are kinda cute to look at, but dress them up with a dandy coat of chocolate, and suddenly you’ve got a treat you won’t be able to resist.

Go Read the whole thing and find out how to make them! Tuxedo Peeps

How to make Cake Eggs:

All you need:
Egg shells (Jumbo would yield larger results, but in this case, I thought brown would be pretty.)
Your favorite light in texture cake batter (for these I just used a white cake mix)

Using an icepick or other sharp pointy object, make a hole in the top of each egg shell. Carefully! Then enlarge the hole to about a 1/2 inch in diameter by carefully removing little bits of shell.
Pour out the insides and reserve for your cake batter, and/or other uses. (If you need to separate eggs for your cake batter, like I did, just pour out the whites first into one bowl, then use a toothpick to break up the yolk, and pour it into a separate bowl. Otherwise, just use a toothpick to mix the egg up a bit in the shell, then pour out.

Wash your egg shells.
Looking for more info, I googled and found these instructions, which suggest the egg shells should then be soaked in salty water for 30 minutes. I have no idea if this is necessary, but I decided to try that. That recipe also suggested drizzling a little oil in the shells, but I found that problematic. Since I’m serving these in their shells, I’d just skip that, or try a squirt of non stick spray.

After your eggshells are dry, it’s time to fill and bake them!
A mini muffin tin was the perfect size to hold the eggs upright for filling and baking. If your eggs don’t fit perfectly, you might add salt or sand to the cups to provide stability, or place a little foil in the cups to fill in the space.

Put your cake batter in a piping bag or a plastic baggie with a corner cut off, and pipe batter into egg shells, filling about 2/3 of the way up.

If you’ve overfilled your eggs, you will have batter that comes out the top. So put a sheet pan under your muffin tin to catch any extra that might drip off.

Bake according to the cake directions (temperature) for about 20 minutes (use cupcake directions as a guide, though these will be smaller so may not take as long.) Use the toothpick test to determine doneness.

If your eggs have overflowed, just knock off the excess. Let cool. If you place your eggs in an air tight container or zip bag, any cake on the outside of the eggs will easily wipe off after resting.

Egg cups make the perfect serving dish. Or, serve a set in a clean egg carton! If you want to add a dollop of icing or whipped cream, peel a little of the shell off the top, and decorate as desired. You could also just top the egg with an edible flower, and let the cake be a bit of a surprise!

You could also fancy these up by painting the shells with a little food coloring or similar, after baking!

(thanks to Grieg for helping me with the photos!)

My latest party recipe: Sweet Potato Mini-Tarts.

I got rave reviews on my sweet potato casserole with cranberry-macadamia topping at Christmas, so I decided to adapt the recipe for use as a mini party dessert / appetizer. Last week I gave you the run down on making the tartlet shells… they were very easy and inexpensive to make, but if you’re pressed for time, you can use any type of pre-made appetizer shells for this recipe.
The same ideas can of course be adapted for other types of mini-pies, but I’ll tell you these were certainly a hit at this weekend’s gathering!

So, check out the step-by-step in the photo-recipe below! The actual recipe follows.

Photo-Recipe – Sweet Potato Mini-Tarts

1. Wash and slice sweet potatoes, 2. Boil or roast until soft, 3. When cool enough to handle, peel., 4. Puree with other ingredients, 5. Pureed Filling, 6. ‘Homemade’ Tart Shells to make: Make Tart Shells How-to, 7. Fill plastic bag or piping bag, 8. Cut hole for piping, 9. Pipe into Shells, 10. Filled Shells, 11. Make the topping, 12. Add nuts and fruit, 13. Completed Topping, 14. Top with about a teaspoon of the topping, 15. Baked and ready to eat!

Note: I have promised to write up the recipe for the sweet potato casserole that inspired this, but I haven’t done that yet–I will!! For the tartlets, I figured since the shells were pre-cooked, the filling only needed to be heated through and the toppings toasted, so I left out the eggs and changed the proportions, so the filling for these is closer to a sweet mashed potato, rather than a souffle.

Yield: Makes about 50 mini-tarts

Ingredients:

2-3 Sweet Potatoes (enough to make 2+ cups cooked-Just cook extra if you’re not sure.)
———-
(for each 2-3 cups sweet potato*)
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons Butter (softened)
Dash vanilla
———-
1/3 c brown sugar
2 Tbls butter (firm)
1/4 c flour
~1/2 c dried cranberries
~1/2 c macadamia nuts**
———-
Mini Tart shells (~48)
Make your own ahead of time (easy & cheap!)
or storebought (any type of pastry shell / phyllo shell that holds about 1 ounce – if yours hold more, take that into account in the amount of filling required.)

*Because sizes of sweet potatoes vary, you may end up with more filling than you need, or more than will fit in your food processor! Just go ahead and puree all of it, adjusting the amount of sugar, butter, and milk for larger quantities. This isn’t an exact science, and just like making mashed potatoes, you have some leeway. Simply taste your potatoes to ensure they taste good, and add milk gradually to ensure your filling is firm enough to pipe into the shells, and you’ll be fine.
…and if you end up with leftover potato puree, it makes an excellent sidedish for dinner!

**Pecans would be an excellent alternate choice!

Filling:

First, the filling, which is basically mashed sweet potatoes. This can be done in a food processor or a stand mixer (use a stand mixer if you’re doing a larger quantity).

Slice your potatoes into even sized rounds, and boil for about 10 minutes or until you can stab them with a fork with little resistance.
Run them under cold water in a colander, let cool to touch. Remove the skins, they should peel off easily with your fingers.

In a food processor (or mixer) combine the sweet potatoes with the butter, sugar, milk, and vanilla. (1 batch in my food processor was about the right amount for the 50 tarts, but I made extra just in case, and we had the remaining for dinner!). Puree until smooth and thick (See photos).

The neatest method for transferring the filling to the shells is piping it. If you don’t have a piping bag you want to use, just fill a ziptop sandwich bag with your filling, then trim off a corner (trim small at first, you can always make it bigger!).

Line up your shells on a cookie sheet, and squeeze the filling into the waiting pastry shells.

Topping:

Clean out your food processor if necessary, then add your brown sugar, firm butter, and flour. Pulse together until the flour is absorbed and the mixture is looking crumbly.
Add your macadamias and your cranberries, and pulse several more times to break up the macadamias a bit and incorporate them into the mixture.
I put about a half cup of each in at first, then decided I wanted more so I added maybe an additional 1/4 cup or so of each.

Sprinkle the topping on your waiting tartlets. Each tart gets about a teaspoon of topping — but don’t measure.

Tarts can be prepared and refrigerated ahead of time (even frozen), so the night of the party, just pop the tray in the oven at about 375 degrees until the toppings brown and caramelize… about 10 minutes should do it. Keep an eye on it, you don’t want the nuts to burn or the shells to get over done. Mine got left in a little long due to a timer setting error, but they still came out ok.

Can be served warm or room temp.

That’s about it!
———————————-

Added Bonus!

As I mentioned, I had leftover potatoes, since I wasn’t sure exactly how much filling I would need and had wanted to be sure I had enough!
Needless to say, that did not go to waste.

I spooned the left over sweet potato mixture into a baking dish.
The topping recipe outlined above was about the right amount for 50 tarts, but I wanted topping on this, so I mixed up a little more (that was pretty heavy on the nuts and fruit).
Sprinkled the topping on, and baked (375 I think?) it for about 15 minutes, or until the topping was crunchy and tan. Just check to see that it is hot all the way through, and you have a perfect sidedish!

These can be used for small appetizers (anything you’d do with phyllo shells, for example) or mini desserts.

You’ll need:

• mini sized muffin pan(s) – My muffin pan is non-stick so I didn’t use any cooking spray or anything.
• Either a cookie cutter, or juice glass to cut out your rounds. This juice glass was about 2 inches in diameter, and was exactly the size i needed, but experiment, as the sizes of those mini muffin pans can vary. My muffin pan is non-stick so I didn’t use any cooking spray or anything.
• Pie Crust: I cheated on this one and used the store bought rolled pie crust (Like Pillsbury AllReady), but you can make your own pretty easily. If you use store-bought, I made about 50 shells from 1 package.
• Rolling Pin or something to roll out the dough with. I used this little dumpling roller that my mom brought me from asia somewhere, because I was already using the end of it to press the rounds down in the cups.

Instructions follow the photo gallery below. Click on a photo to view larger or as a slideshow.

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400.
1. Unroll dough. You may want to roll it slightly more with your rolling pin, to flatten out the edges.
2. Cut out your rounds. They should be slightly larger in diameter than the top of your muffin cup, and when pressed down into it, come a little more than half way up the sides (see pics).
–Once you’ve cut all you can out of the pre-rolled out dough, press the scraps back together, and roll out again. Make sure the dough is rolled as thin as before, or a little thinner. Cut more rounds from that, and continue until you’ve used up all the dough.
3. Press the round into the muffin tin, pressing down.
4. Poke holes with a fork in the bottom and sides of each cup (this is called “docking” the crust, and keeps it from puffing too much*)
5. Fill each cup with dried beans or other pie weights (Also keeps the crust from puffing as much. You can skip this step if you dock well, but I still found I got a nicer shape with the beans.)
6. Bake in ~400 degree oven for ~5 min. (Ovens, pans, and dough varies, try your first batch to confirm times. I did mine in my little toaster oven and this was what I used. You want golden tan color on the top and no burning on the bottom.
7. Let cool to touch and remove from pan, remove beans, let cool.

*you can also dock the crust prior to placing it in the cups, if that’s easier.

I’ll be doing more with these tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Dot’s Mom’s Blueberry Pie:

Ingredients
Pastry for top & bottom of 9 in pie *
4 c fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen ones from my parents haul this summer)
3/4 c sugar
3 Tbs flour
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind (doh! no fresh lemons on hand today, so I left out)
dash salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1-2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs butter
*Although it’s certainly not that hard to make your own piecrust pastry, I cheated here and used the all-ready type rolled pastry you can find in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, near the cookie dough rolls and biscuit dough tubes.

(row 1)Combine sugar,flour, spices and peel in a large bowl
Toss with blueberries
Line 9″ pie pan with pastry.
Pour blueberry mixture into shell
(row 2)Sprinkle with Lemon Juice, Dot with butter.
Top with top crust**
Crimp crust edges together, squeezing with your fingers.
(row 3)To avoid too brown crust edges, use aluminum foil to make little strips to cover the edges of the pie. (Unless you have a pie crust shield like this or this)
Sprinkle with xtra sugar and cinnamon.
(row 4)Bake 375 for 35-40 minutes (reduce heat if needed to keep crust from over browning)
Pie is done with nicely tan on top, and blueberry juice is oozing through the holes in the top. Mine took about 15 min longer than the recommendation above.

**For my top crust I used a handy cheat – a Lattice Pie Top Cutter –basically a giant cookie cutter that gives the appearance of a lattice crust. You can do anything you want here (if you use a solid sheet, be sure to prick the top of the pie), including making a ‘real’ lattice top, or using cookie cutters to cut out shapes.

If you click through to flickr, the picture above contains notes explaining all the steps – a one stop recipe!

Several people asked where to get the lattice top maker: You can get a Fox Run Lattice Pie Top Cutter HERE!

View other PHOTO RECIPES

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