Household Ways: April Fool's Day Recipes

An April Fool's Mixed-Up Dinner

We like to have fun on April Fools Day, but I think pranks are just mean spirited, so I don't allow them. A fun mixed-up dinner is a lot of fun with no harm done.
Begin with having your dessert first...

or so it appears.
This looks like a pie, and of sorts it is, but it is a chicken pot pie.

And if you have dessert first, you have to have dinner next.

This year we are having mashed potatoes...

peas and carrots

and corn on the cob.

I haven't found a main dish I like, so let me know if you know of a good one.

They, of course are all cupcakes and so really are the dessert even if they look like the meal.

Sara at Best Bites, where I got the idea, used foil cupcake pan which made it look even more real.

To make the peas and carrots, begin by frosting the cupcakes with green frosting.

For the peas Sara used green Runts, but we couldn't find any in our little town, so we had to settle for green peanut butter M&M's and Skittles. The carrots are orange Starbursts, chopped in quarters. Let me warn you, you are going to need a lot of them. We didn't have quite enough so more frosting shows through than should.

For the Mashed Potatoes use vanilla frosting and leave a little bit of a well at the top.

Add a drizzle of caramel syrup and a flattened out Starburst (Laffy Taffy also works great) and you’re set.

Lastly, although not realistic, it was so cute I couldn't resist, the corn on the cob is 3 cupcakes frosted with pale yellow frosting and use Jelly Bellies for the corn. You could use a few shades of yellow and white, but works best is the buttered popcorn flavor, which kinda goes with the theme anyway.

Top it with a Starburst pat of butter and if you have any black and clear sugar sprinkles you can add salt and pepper. Sara added a yellow plastic corn skewer on either end of the row of cupcakes, which was really cute, but we didn't have any.

Happy April Fool's Day!

Update:

photo source

I found the perfect main dish for my mixed-up dinner, fish sticks!
Faux, of course, with strawberry jam dipping sauce.

Cornflakes
Sugar wafer cookies
Peanut butter
Seedless strawberry jam

For the fish sticks, place a couple of handfuls of cornflakes in a ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Cover 2 sugar wafer cookies with peanut butter, then toss them in the cornflake crumbs to coat.

Mini-Burgers for April Fool's Day

I thought I first saw this at the Family Fun website, but when I went there, I could only find a recipe in which you make your own cookies that would fit regular sized Peppermint Patties. These were so cute and SO easy to put together. No baking involved!

Nilla Wafer cookies

sesame seeds
shredded coconut
Green food coloring
Red and yellow icing in a squirt bottle
mini Peppermint Patties

First make the "lettuce" by putting some shredded coconut into a plastic bag. Add a few drops of green food coloring, close the bag, and shake until the coconut has turned a light green.

Next make your sesame seed buns by brushing the tops of some Nilla wafers with any flavor jam -just enough to make some "glue" to hold the sesame seeds. Sprinkle on the seeds.

To assemble the burgers, take a plain Nilla wafer (not one of the

ones you have seeded) and place a Peppermint Patty on it. Squirt a small amount of red icing "ketchup" and a small amount of yellow icing "mustard" on the Peppermint Patty. Sprinkle with coconut "lettuce." Top with one of your sesame seeded cookies.

Hot Chocolate Cup-Cakes

Don't these look just like hot, steaming mugs of hot chocolate?

They make great April Fool's surprises!

Katie made these adorable hot chocolate cup cakes with marshmallow frosting. You can too!

Just use your favorite chocolate cake recipe (I would share this one, but it is gluten and casein free) and add 1 Tab cinnamon and 2 Tab. additional cocoa to make a rich-chocolaty cake. Fill regular mugs 3/4 full with batter. Place batter filled mugs into a 12 x 9 inch baking dish. Add about 1 inch of water to the baking dish. Bake as cupcakes. (It may take a few minutes longer.)
Once cooled top with the fluffy white "whipped cream" frosting, which is easy to make. You can also just use marshmallow fluff by itself or real whipped cream, if you wish
"Whipped Cream" Frosting
1/2 cup margarine
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup marshmallow fluff
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 to 4 tsp. milk
Mix with electric mixer until creamy smooth. This was able to frost five of our cup-cakes.
Dollop on the top of the cooked cup-cakes. Add mini-marshmallows for decoration. Enjoy!
These are fun to serve with steaming mugs of hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows. See if your friends and family can tell which mugs of hot chocolate are the impostors!