April Fool's Day Mashed Potatoes and Meatloaf

April Fool's Day is coming up soon and I'm getting prepared to trick my kids! (Ha, ha, ha...evil laugh) I recently purchased a great book called "Fake out Food" which is an AWESOME book for food ideas to trick your kids. My boys don't like meatloaf, but I'll bet that they'll love this 'meatloaf' with marshmallows, chocolate, and fruit snacks. I love how it looks so real. Have fun coming up with different ways to present your food. You'll be surprised if you start looking at food and thinking of other ways to make it look like something else. In fact just the other day I thought to myself "I think that scallops look like apple chunks. Hmmmmm" What are you making for your April Fool's Day trick?

Posted by: Jen

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp butter

6-8 c cocoa rice krispy cereal

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 10 oz pkg mini marshmallows

1/3 c Craisins

2-3 pkg fruit snacks

other dried fruit, optional

frosting and red food coloring

The Instructions:

Melt the butter in a large nonstick pan. When butter is melted, stir in the cocoa powder until it is smooth.

Add the marshmallows, and stir occasionally to melt all the way through.

While your marshmallows are melting, put the cereal in a gallon baggie and pound with a meat mallet or roll with a rolling pin to crush the cereal. Don't worry if it's not all crushed. It adds to the texture of the 'meatloaf'.

Chop your Craisins, fruit snacks, and any other dried fruit into small pieces. Attention, this can be sticky on your knife. I wonder if it would help to spray your knife with nonstick spray first. Add the fruit snacks to the baggie of crushed cereal and mix it all in well.

Add the cereal mixture to the melted marshmallows and stir in until all the cereal is completely coated with marshmallow.

Grease a loaf pan. (or even also line it with parchment paper and spray that.) Pour your marshmallow/cereal mixture into the loaf pan and press down to make it all firm. (spray your hands with nonstick spray before doing this.) Let cool for about 1/2 hour.

If desired, coloring your frosting red and spread a thin layer on top of the 'meatloaf'. (I should have used a deeper red food coloring. Oh well, Next time)

Now for the mashed potatoes. All you need are:

Ingredients:

Vanilla ice cream

caramel sauce

yellow soft candies (ie, Starburst)

You'll want to prepare the 'mashed potatoes' immediately before serving your family. It will take you a grand total of maybe 3 minutes to prepare. Scoop out some ice cream and place it on your serving plate. Gently press in the middle of your ice cream scoop to resemble the cavity for gravy in your mashed potatoes. Drizzle caramel sauce into the cavity and let some drip down the side of the ice cream. Press your yellow candy into a flattened square to resemble a pat of butter. If your candies aren't so soft (like mine were ), then nuke it in the microwave for no more than 10 seconds. I placed my candy on a piece of wax paper (parchment would be better). When it was softer I pressed it down and immediately placed it on top of my 'mashed potatoes'.

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April Fools’ Day Dinner: Meatloaf “Cupcakes” with Mashed Potato “Frosting”

So, when I was planning my meals for the week I asked for suggestions for something fun for our April Fools' Day dinner.  Renee sent me to Cupcakes and Swirls where they'd made these cute little Meatloaf and Mashed Potato "Cupcakes".  I'm not such a meatloaf fan myself, but since my kids had recently expressed interest in trying it, I thought it'd be the perfect April Fools trick to play on my family!    The best part about this funny trick is that once they got over the shock that they weren't really getting their dessert first, they actually really liked the meatloaf/mashed potato combination!  Of course it also helped that they got their real April Fool dessert ("mashed potato" cupcakes)  or "Hamburger" Cookies afterward!   If you have your own favorite meatloaf or mashed potato recipes, you can go ahead and use your tried and true favorites!  Have fun!   



We were in a hurry when we made these, so we didn’t put much effort into making the “frosting” look very pretty, but if you get the mashed potatoes the right consistency, you can make them look as fancy (or non-fancy in our case) as you would normally make cupcakes. 

Click here for printable recipe.

The ingredients:

MEATLOAF CUPCAKES:
1 lb. lean ground beef (I used ground turkey)
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs (I used plain breadcrumbs with a teaspoon of oregano)
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
3 Tbs. ketchup
1 egg
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
12 foil cupcake liners

MASHED POTATO "FROSTING":
4 medium russet potatoes, washed and peeled
4 Tbs.  unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
food coloring, if desired


Directions:   Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 12 muffin tin cups with foil bake cups.  In a large bowl, mix together all of the meat loaf ingredients until well combined.

Divide the mixture evenly among the lined cups (the liners should be about three quarters full).  Place the filled muffin tins on cookie sheets and bake the cupcakes for about 15 minutes or until cooked through.  

While the meatloaf cupcakes are baking, cut the peeled potatoes into smaller, equal pieces. Place in a pot with water covering the potatoes. Cook over medium to high heat, bringing to a boil. Continue boiling, about 10 minutes, or until potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife.  Drain water from potatoes, add butter, milk, salt and pepper. Beat with an electric mixer, until nice and smooth.    Divide the mashed potatoes among three small bowls and stir a few drops of food coloring into each batch to create blue, yellow, and pink pastel frostings. Spread a generous dollop on each cupcake.

You can also pipe the mashed potatoes on, the same as you would do with frosting, but we were lazy and did it the easy way.     Makes 12 "cupcakes". 

Serve warm and make sure you have some real dessert for them afterward.  :) 

Enjoy! 

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April Fool's Day Treat: "Mashed Potato" Cupcakes

 Well, my family got a real April Fool's Day surprise this year!  I was so excited to make some fun new treats to share here on the blog, that they got their April Fool's Day dinner tonight!  It actually was pretty classic to see their reactions when they realized that they were getting tricked early this year!  We got the idea for  these "mashed potatoes" cupcakes from my daughter's   Hello, Cupcake! cookbook, which is a full of fun and easy cupcake ideas.  

We made these using  our dairy free cupcake recipe, which was perfect since it makes just 12 cupcakes and the chocolate cake combined with the caramel topping tasted pretty fabulous too!   Make sure you melt the caramel topping slightly before drizzling, to make it more like a gravy consistency.   

Check out my other April Fool's treats as well--Hamburger Cookies and Meatloaf and Mashed Potato "Cupcakes". 

Click here for printable recipe. 

The ingredients:

Baked cupcakes
White frosting
Caramel ice cream topping, melted slightly
Yellow Starburst candies

Directions:  Liberally frost each cupcake with white frosting to look like a mound of mashed potatoes.  Make a small indentation in the top where the yellow Starburst pat of butter will be set, but before placing it, drizzle caramel topping that has been melted slightly. 

(I put mine in a small bowl in the microwave for about 15 seconds, then used a spoon to drizzle it over to look like gravy).  Place Starburst pat of butter in place and add a tiny bit more caramel topping to complete the look.

Serve immediately and wait for the smiles!  Enjoy! 

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