Decadent and Delightful

My husband and I love Olive Garden's Black Tie Mousse Cake.  It is probably our favorite restaurant dessert.  So for Easter dinner, I made a copycat recipe that I found at http://kldh.blogspot.com/2011/04/aprilbirthday-cakes.html.  It wasn't hard to make, but it has a lot of steps and was very time consuming.  It was a two-day process, freezing the cake after the third layer.  Although it was a lot of work, it was fun to make because each layer was different--chocolate cake on the bottom, then chocolate cheesecake, then Italian mousse, topped with chocolate ganache with white chocolate swirls, chocolate mousse frosting piped around the edge and a "crust" of mini chocolate chips.  It was delicious and was a huge hit at our Easter dinner!  If you're a chocoholic like me, you should definitely try this one!

Easter Table

This was our first married Easter.  (We are coming up on one year of marriage in just a few weeks.)  We are on an alternating schedule for holidays with our families, and this year, Easter was with my family--eight people total.  We decided to host dinner at our house, and I had so much fun planning everything!  I especially enjoyed decorating the table.  I love how a specially decorated table can set the mood for a meal--whether formal or romantic or fun and whimsical.  I love using table decor to enhance a gathering.  For Easter, I wanted to create a very spring-like feel.  I'm not a huge fan of traditional Easter pastel, so I wanted to use vibrant colors.  I also didn't want it to be too girly for the men of the family, and I wanted it to feel elegant while also being very fun and cheery.  Finally, I wanted it to have some unique personalization, and I wanted it to be easy enough to clean up (especially since a toddler would be involved) so as not to take away too much family-time after the meal.  I love how it all turned out!!

For the centerpiece, I used my Anchor Hocking cake plate, which is designed so that it can be turned upside down into a pedestal bowl.  I dyed 63 Easter eggs to fill the bowl, leaving the eggs in the dye for about 5 minutes each in order to get the most vibrant colors I could.  I used my wedding bouquet (silk daffodils--yellow daffodils are my favorite flower) in the middle, and I covered the base with silk yellow rose petals that were used on the tables at our wedding reception.

For each place setting, I used a round purple placemat, ivory plate, and purple napkin.  I love how the turqouise and purple go together.  I also found these adorable dragonfly napkin rings to put in the center of each plate.

I thought about using my wedding china plates, but for the sake of easy clean-up, I opted to use the everyday plates that can be thrown in the dishwasher.  One thing I've learned about hosting parties is that it's better to keep things a little simpler than to spend all your time in the kitchen, missing out on the gathering.

I also personalized each place with the guests' names.  I found some really cute potted silk flowers in bright spring colors for half off at a craft store.  I wrote each name on a foam Easter egg sticker.  I attached the sticker to a mini clothespin, which I clipped to the top edge of the pot.  They looked so cute!  And I can easily unclip the names and re-use the flowers for other events.

I absolutely love how everything turned out, and my family was very pleased.  Happy Easter, everyone!