happy easter eve/second night of passover, everyone!!! i'm on brisket hangover. also real hangover bc four glasses of wine is apparently a lot. we had a delightful little seder yesterday, complete with charoset truffles and the j-date e-haggadah, which is actually even more ridiculous than it sounds. i subbed half of the potatoes for tater tots in the sussmans' brisket kugel and received a covering-the-bitch-in-tater-tots lesson from eggboy, because apparently in midwest hotdish tradition you don't just put tater tots on top of a casserole and stick it in the oven. you have to carefully place them on in perfect rows, as many of them that will fit, and the rows have to be very very straight. i've never seen eggboy this passionate about a food that isn't eggs or steel cut oats or peanut butter before, so i gave him full reign and it turned out really nicely. 

and yep, there was ketchup. 

we breezed through the afikoman and then ate our brisket hotdish in front of the second harry potter, which was a little bit scary and we totally forgot to eat macaroon cake. so now we are about to bring it to fargo to celebrate easter with eggsister and eggsisterspecialfriend and egguncle! we're gonna dye eggs. eggs dying eggs eating eggs hunting for eggs. the eggiest party, probably ever. 

ok did you think i would allow this easter to pass without a homemade peep? it's ok, i did. but after stumbling upon my peeps mold in the basement a few weeks ago, i realized i'd better not let that go to waste after just one year. so i made cake toppers with it! and stuck them into cheesecake.

cheesecake is a new frontier for me. after the great cheesecake overdose of 1998, i had a bit of an aversion to cheesecake. and then when i was baking at the town bakery, i always tried to avoid baking the cheesecakes because they took sooooooo long to make and in the end, i didn't even really get to frost them and decorating options felt really limited. but i'm trying not to discriminate against cake these days (hi, parsley cake!), so i'm dipping my toes in and starting with the decorations in a semi-homemade situation (hi, sandra!). one day soon i'm going to conquer a replica of piccolo angolo's ricotta cheesecake but today is not that day. it is easter eve. happy easter eve! 

fresh mint peep cake toppers // the fresh mint in these creates for a nice refreshing bunny! my recipe is right this way. simply follow the directions for infusing the bunnies with herbs, using a couple of sprigs of fresh mint. when they're dry, stick their butts with wooden skewers and then stick them in your cheesecake.

create pretty stencil designs // cut out some fun paper shapes, place them on your cheesecake, and then dust the top with powdered sugar or cocoa powder. gently (with tweezers??) remove the stencils.

chocolate drizzles // melt a bit of chocolate either in a double boiler or in a microwave at 30-second increments. spoon the chocolate into a piping bag, cut the teensiest little hole out of the piping bag, hold it high above your cake and then apply constant pressure to the piping bag as you move it quickly back and forth. 

sprinkles // duh. 

all of the cakes in these photos are part of daiya's new dairy free, gluten free, and soy free frozen cheezecake line!

-yeh!

pictured: green cake stand // white cake stand // gold fork

this post is sponsored by daiya! all opinions are my own. the cheesecakes in these photos are part of daiya's new dairy free, gluten free, soy free cheezecake line, which features four varieties: new york, chocolate, strawberry, and key lime. they're now available at whole foods! here is a $1 off coupon!