Easter Baking

Holiday baking is one of my favorite things. This weekend was a bundle of family fun. Eliot's uncle Greg arrived in town on Saturday so we had an Easter/Welcome BBQ and then on Sunday was my dad's 72nd birthday as well as Easter. There are a lot of diabetics in both of our families so low sugar or sugar free items are the best. I made carrot cake cupcakes, ambrosia, chocolate chocolate cake and a mango cheesecake. Lydia helped by cooking on the floor while I worked on the counter tops.

The ambrosia was inspired by Top Chef Masters. A couple of weeks ago they had to make 1960's recipes, this was one of the options. It was super easy to make. I used no sugar added canned fruit, light sour cream,coconut and regular mini marshmallows. It was pretty light and tasty. I think that I would like to try fresh fruit to see if they result is any different.

The carrot cake cupcakes were a little dry. I baked on Friday from Saturday and Sunday. I put the cakes in the frig and I feel that it might have affected the moisture of the cakes. Although, I will say that everyone raved about them. Particularly my dad's chocolate chocolate sugar free cake. A cook is always their worst critic I think. The same goes for an author, or actor, or whatever. We tend to be a little harder on ourselves than others, well at least I am, in lots of areas of life but food is definitely a major place of self criticism. But the important part was that my dad liked it.

The piece of resistance was the mango cheesecake. It was pretty darn good. It's all about the tools. I was able to puree in the food processor. Set up the crust in the spring foam. I used  very little Splenda there was no odd ball after taste so almost all the sweetness came fresh mangoes. I have to say that it was the decorative part I was most worried about and I think I did pretty well. All the Gaurkees and Raheb's loved it. Then we took home the leftovers, the Rohrs and Ortegas were also impressed. Even I must say it was creamy and good.