Easter is never really a huge deal in our house. Usually we gather with our family and have dinner, but it’s not something I put a ton of thought or time into. Since it’s still the season of COVID this year was (again) different. It was just our household, but we got to have one special edition, my 87 year old grandfather who has now been fully vaccinated! (Yes, I know how exciting it is. I wanted to throw a big parade, then I remembered that most people have not yet been vaccinated and said parade would be a terrible idea!)
Since we were going to have this very special and honored guest the girls were pretty excited to make something EXTRA special for dessert. We thought for a long time, looked at a lot of recipes, and finally settled on 2. The first, a King Arthur Baking recipe for key lime pie. The second, from our wonderful cookie book by Sarah Kieffer (https://www.thevanillabeanblog.com/100-cookies just in case you’ve lost all the other time I’ve linked for you to buy it, here it is again. It’s SO worth it!) we chose Creme Brûlée Cheesecake Bars. Now, I must warn you. These are both SO yummy I’d encourage you to make them a view weeks apart or else you’re in for a major sugar high. You will not be able to resist!
We made the pie first. The kids ground up the graham cracker and made the crust entirely on their own. I was actually not in the kitchen for most of the crust making, so if they messed up I wouldn’t even know. I don’t think they did, it tasted great. It was a bit tricky because we needed a certain amount of crumbs, but ever the problem solver the big kid decided they should just process an entire box of graham cracker, put that in a bowl, an measure from there. It seemed to work great for them!
While the crust was cooling we worked on the filling. I zested the lime (it was really tough! Much tougher then zesting a lemon so be prepared) while the kids measured and mixed the rest of the ingredients. It was fairly straight forward. I, of course, was tasked with separating the eggs while the kids stood by commenting on how gross it looked and how they were SO happy they didn’t have to do it. Other then the zesting and the eggs this was really their show! I was so proud of how they tackled this new recipe with all the tools I’ve given them and got through it together.
For the creme brûlée bars the kids again made the crust, it was very similar to the pie crust, and they handled it like pros. After that they kind of lost interest. I can’t really blame them, they were SUPER excited to see their great grandfather, and I was super excited to listen to them all chat and laugh. Finishing them up on my own was SO worth it. The cheesecake was fairly easy to mix up. I followed the directions exactly and it came out silky smooth! We baked them, let them rest in the fridge overnight, and then, just before it was time for dessert we put the sugar on top and brûléed them! I didn’t let the kids play with the torch, in fact there was talk that perhaps I shouldn’t even be allowed to handle the torch (I have a history with fire, if you know you know), but ultimately I did get to at least have a turn at my first brûlée. It was really cool, and SUPER delicious. Next time I would brûlée the bars individually to avoid the cracking when cutting (which the always brilliant Sarah Kieffer mentions in her book, I was just so excited I forgot that part) so they look a little more pretty. I sure didn’t hurt the taste though! Wow! 5 out of 5 stars! Highly recommend!
What did everyone make for Easter this year? Did anyone else try any new to them recipes? How did they turn out? We’d love to hear about it! I’m calling this weekends kitchen adventures a success. They may not have been the most beautiful things we’ve ever made but they tasted great and the kids took the lead on most aspects of it.
Here the link for the key lime pie recipe that we used: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-key-lime-pie-recipe We also made some homemade whipped cream to put in top and it was perfection!
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