sweets and sweaters: Bacon Bird Nests, Tarts and Peeps, Oh My!

Brunch is definitely my favorite meal. So what's better than a holiday that's all about brunch? That's why Easter is my most favorite holiday! This year, I celebrated with mimosas and a feast.
Here's what was on the menu.

Peeps on a Stick!
Fruit Tarts
Marbled Easter Eggs
Bacon Bird Nests!

Peeps on a Stick!!!

This was just fun to do. Reminds me of the Peeps Diorama contest my roommies and I entered back in DC.
All you do is melt some chocolate chips in a double boiler. I added a bit of milk to make the chocolate a bit more runny. Then dip the Peeps in and toss on some sprinkles.

I laid them on parchment paper while I finished dipping all the Peeps. Wanted to finish that before the chocolate hardened. Then I made a hole in the middle of the Peep with a BBQ skewer, then dipped the end of the skewer in the chocolate and back into the Peep. I thought the chocolate might help like glue. Then put them in the freezer to make the chocolate harden faster. Filled a vase with fake grass and arranged them for the center of the table. I got the idea from somewhere on the internet but I can't remember where.

Cheating Tarts

These are cheating tarts because they are just so easy (and I use store-bought crust). In this recipe, I used my favorite secret weapon when cooking for a crowd, Pepperidge Farms Pastry Sheets. I rolled out some of this dough and covered my little tart tins. I wished I had my pie weights... When baking blind (without a filling), the crust can rise and doesn't leave any room for the cream. Instead of using pie weights, I pricked the dough several times with a fork and then again half way through the baking time. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes, pricked the bases down, then baked for another 5-10 minutes. Since the bacon nests were also baked at 400 degrees, I could alternate getting the tarts ready while baking bacon, and visa versa.

The next day, I made some chantilly cream (just a fancy way of saying whipped cream) and topped them with fruit. Easy- Peasy! My tarts from Easter a couple years ago were a bit better, though a bit more complicated.

Marbled Easter Eggs

Another crafty food project was decorating Easter eggs. Actually, the boiled eggs went well with the next dish too :) I stole this idea from Martha Stewart but went the easy route and bought the egg decorating kit from the supermarket. I made all the colors with the dye and vinegar in plastic cups. Then after I'd done one base coat of color, I added vegetable oil (Martha Stewart says to use olive oil but vegetable oil worked just fine, no use wasting olive oil in egg dye) to the cups and dunked the eggs again. The oil made it so the second dunk didn't completely coat the egg. I think they turned out real purdy.

Bacon Bird Nests

Ok all you baconphiles, this is the post you've all been waiting for! I got this idea from notmartha.org. I took three strips of bacon and laid them side by side. Then I took another strip of bacon and wove it between the others. Then cut off the excess and used it for more weaving. When it was about three pieces by three pieces, I wrapped it around an upside-down muffin tin. I highly recommend wrapping the tin with lots of aluminum foil.

Also recommend having another baking sheet underneath the muffin tin (also with aluminum foil) to catch the grease and not leave a mess in your oven. I cooked them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. I let them cool and stored them in the fridge over night. The next day I put them in the toaster oven on the toast setting for about 5 minutes. I had varying degrees of success in keeping the cup shape. The toaster oven did crisp up the bacon but it didn't hold it's shape well. Then I tried reheating on the muffin tin in the oven. That held it's shape more and I recommend that for future reheats. The bacon also shrinks a lot so the cups tend to be pretty shallow.