Last Minute Cute Easter Cookie Ideas

by Lora Wiley-Lennartz

There is no Easter meal in the plan for us this year. Starting this Friday, we will be living on a houseboat for a week touring Germany’s Mecklenburg Lake District of Germany in the company of my husband’s family.

However, for those of you who are plotting an Easter feast, here are some last minute (relatively) easy Easter cookie ideas to throw together to make your holiday table more festive. 

Here we go:

I love these speckled egg French macarons. I divided up the macaron shell batter and tinted each portion a different color. They are filled with luscious chocolate ganache. For a clever presentation, serve them, line a bowl with Easter grass and place the macarons on top.

Speckled Egg French Macarons

These butterfly shaped Meringue cookies are girly, pretty and like the speckled egg French macarons above, a great way to use up leftover egg whites. Meringues come together quickly but take a long time to bake on a low oven temperature. A sprinkle of nonpareils amps up the cute factor.
Butterfly Meringue Cookies

When adding a touch of whimsey to an elegant madeleines recipe, I love these Easter bunny ears madelines. I tinted one third of the batter pink and piped a stripe of it into the madeleine pan first, then filled in the rest with the untinted batter.

Easter Bunny Ears Madeleines

These bird’s nest cookies come from one of my favorite cookie recipe books, The Cookie Jar Cookbook. In the book the author cleverly matches up cookie recipes with vintage cookie jars. Creatively adorable. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made these cookies over the years for Easter and just to celebrate Spring. The years I lived in Germany, I could not find malted chocolate eggs so I used speckled jelly beans instead. These are always a crowd pleaser. 

Bird’s Nest Cookies

Easter seven layer cookies are a riff on the Italian classic version. I swapped out the red and green for pink and purple and used elderberry jam in between the layers. In the past, I’ve created a Fall color version of this cookie, as well as a green ombre one for St. Patrick’s Day. The color combination possibilities are endless, so it’s a flexible cookie for any holiday or occasion. You also can swap out the jam flavor for your favorite. Sometimes I like to put a little decorative accent on top of each cookie.

Easter Seven Layer Cookies

Keeping with the Italian theme, classic Italian Easter Cookies also provide a splash of pastel prettiness to any dessert platter. The decorating options here are many. You can leave the glaze white or tint it colors. Or, like I did, you can tint the glaze and add extra embellishment like quins, sprinkles or glitter sugar.

Italian Easter Cookies

This last treat is not a cookie. It falls under the candy category and is so easy to make, I wanted to include it.  I took a basic Easter bark recipe and used pastel colors and an assortment of Easter candy to create Easter Bunny Bark. Something an Easter bunny might eat. A cute idea  for the kinder. 

Easter Bark

That’s it! I hop, er I mean I hope you found some inspiration or something you want to make yourself. More importantly, wishing you all a hippity hoppity happy Easter!

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1 comment

Joanne April 5, 2015 - 11:15 am

I need to try your speckled egg macarons…and those cute madeleines!!

Reply

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