one giant easter egg, coming up! just start with sugar cookie dough

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER EASY IDEA FOR EASTER. You may not realize just how big this cookie is and I couldn’t take a photo with the munchkins nearby for fear of one toddler’s roaming fingers. But don’t worry about those guys, they’ll dig in soon. This cookie is more than a foot long, totally impressive in its scale (though sweet in its imperfection) and by far the easiest Easter treat we’ve made yet.

This big Easter egg was actually the highlight of our day yesterday. After a nap fail with Phoebe and Estelle, which is just as crushing a defeat as any weary parent who’s counting on that time to get things done can handle, I was pleasantly surprised when our afternoon wasn’t a series of meltdowns. It was one of those days when I just couldn’t figure out how to coerce them into actually sleeping. I read books, I followed the routine, I even brought my laptop in so I could quietly coax them toward Napland/ensure they didn’t leave the bunk beds for the toy shelf. That didn’t work. So I left. And somehow stomping back into the bedroom and shrieking, “GO TO SLEEP!” didn’t have the desired effect either. So we left it at this: next time they’ll both have Quiet Time instead of a nap, but they’ll do it in two different rooms. Wish us luck.

But when it came time to decorate the egg, all was well.

Sitting on barstools at the counter, all three of them browsed Easter books and watched me piping the frosting, squealing about which colors were in use, and what to do next. It’s also an excellent project to work on together.

All you need is a sugar cookie recipe (I love this one because it’s easy and yeah, a little healthier), some frosting and a few sparkles, beads, chocolate chips, raisins, you name it, you can decorate with it. A few tips for making it work:

• Roll out the dough so you get a rough egg shape, then fold the edges in and lightly roll again to smooth. FLIP the whole thing over to bake so the top of the dough is again smoother.
• You’ll need a regular cookie sheet to bake it on and I used a Silpat liner, which worked perfectly.
• You’ll also want a big tray to serve it on, OR try lining a regular cookie sheet with either a pretty towel or even wrapping paper.
• I used regular frosting for the white, piped by using a simple sandwich bag. Fill the bag about 2/3 full and carefully snap one corner to create a spout (make this small to start with, you can always make it bigger). Then just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. For the green I did get a pre-made frosting tube complete with a little star tip at the end.

There’s nothing at all healthy about this cookie. Nothing. But it’s one fun treat for a special occasion and while I do love adding wheat germ and flaxseed to anything that’ll hold still (including the children), sometimes it’s also fun to splurge on a sweet. The trick is portion size and regularity. How often are the little guys diving into something decadent? Not often.

You may have heard me say/type/blog into the air about this before we typically rotate through “dessert” night at our house–and we don’t really eat a lot of sugar throughout the day. One night is dessert night, the next is fruit night, and the next is just no dessert. We’re trying to give them treats but not too much and not too often, and not make a big deal out of it. Like many other things with kids, they actually seem to like the structure because they know what to expect. Let’s hope the new nap routine becomes so easy.