6 recipes to sweeten your Easter menu (2024)

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Saturday, March 30. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

• Six dessert recipes to try this Easter
• The IRS wants to give California taxpayers $94 million in refunds
• Fourteen glorious things to do in the ‘California of Canada’
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

Six dessert recipes to try this Easter

Happy (early) Easter! Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, we’ve got some good recipes for you to try.

What’s on the menu at your house? Perhaps a classic Times recipe like Mayeritsa Greek Easter soup or roasted lamb and turnips, with springtime peas and herbal potatoes on the side.

My family’s Easter dinner looks a lot like what we eat for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Seafood gumbo, honey-baked ham and cornbread dressing are holiday staples for us. Sometimes we’ll add green beans, potatoes and sweet potato pie for a little variety.

But for the most part, the menu is packed with savory dishes and light on the sweet dishes.

What better time to change things up than now?

I dug through countless recipes in our archives to help you end your Sunday with a sweet treat.

With the help of Times colleagues and contributors, I’m entering this holiday with more recipes than I can cook.

Here are six to sweeten your holiday:

Chocolate creme eggs

When I think of Easter, eggs immediately come to mind. Whether they’re hard-boiled or egg-shaped milk chocolate shells. Re-create the Cadbury Creme Egg with this recipe. It takes an hour and a half and makes 3½ dozen eggs.

Spring lime meringue pie

To make this pie, you need an early start. But you can roll and flute the dough the night before. Make the pie filling close to baking time, as the meringue mixture must be made at the last minute. Total preparation time is one hour and 15 minutes, plus one hour of cooling, and serves eight people. Here’s the full recipe.

Shortbread bars with dark caramel and chocolate

Who doesn’t love a Twix bar? This Twix-like recipe makes buttery shortbread bars with a thick layer of caramel. It takes two hours, and you should end up with about five dozen (3½-inch) bars.

Chocolate macarons

Add a little French flavor to your dessert menu this year. The cookie itself doesn’t have much flavor. So to get the full measure of a macaron, you have to make sure that each bit includes cookies and filling. You get texture from the cookies, but you get flavor from the filling. This recipe takes one hour and makes 24 to 30 sandwich cookies.

Vegan carrot-banana cake

We’ve got an easy vegan carrot cake recipe that might be better than the original! Bananas stand in for eggs, binding the batter and giving the cake body. Pro tip: Use bananas whose peels have gone mostly black for the best flavor. It takes an hour and 20 minutes, and serves eight to 12 people.

Vending machine honey buns

Fans of the cellophane-wrapped honey buns will love these squishy-soft and tender homemade honey buns. Plus, they’re healthier without all the chemicals that keep the vending machine versions preserved for years on end. This recipe makes eight buns and takes an hour and 10 minutes, plus three hours of proofing.

The week’s biggest stories

Fast-food price increases

• Starbucks, Chipotle, McDonald’s: Who’s raising prices in California to pay higher wages?.
• With fewer options, South L.A. braces for bigger bills at fast-food restaurants.

Parking at the Hollywood Bowl

• Hollywood Bowl parking is about to get harder. L.A. Phil boss says it’s for a good reason.
• Parking at the Hollywood Bowl is rough. Here’s how to do it anyway.

The Shohei Ohtani interpreter gambling scandal

• Shohei Ohtani says he never bet on sports in first remarks since Ippei Mizuhara accusations.
• What to know about the Shohei Ohtani interpreter gambling scandal.
• Who is Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter fired amid gambling accusations?

Diddy’s sex-trafficking investigation

• Inside the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ raids: Emptied safes, dismantled electronics and gun-toting feds.
• Cuba Gooding Jr. has been added as a co-defendant in Lil Rod’s lawsuit against Diddy.
• A timeline of allegations against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.
• Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ L.A. and Miami homes are raided in a sex-trafficking inquiry, sources say.
• 50 Cent denies Daphne Joy’s rape allegation after trolling her over mention in Diddy lawsuit.
• Feds want Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ communications, flight records in sex-trafficking probe.

‘Quiet on the Set’ documentary

• Nickelodeon stars from ‘Quiet on Set’: Where are they now?
• ‘Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV’: 6 key takeaways from the documentary.
• Dan Schneider says ‘Quiet on Set’ allegations made him feel ‘awful and regretful.’
• Amid ‘Quiet on Set’ fallout, Kenan Thompson says sets for kids shows should ‘be a safe place.’

More big stories

• The EPA issues new clean air rules for heavy-duty trucks. California’s rules are tougher.
• Parents plead no contest to killing and torturing their 4-year-old son, Noah Cuatro.
• A Los Angeles couple’s Supreme Court case sheds light on immigrant visa rejections.
• California’s home insurance crisis: What went wrong, how it can be fixed and what owners can do.
• Party-throwing squatters evicted from mansion near LeBron James’ Beverly Hills home
• News Analysis: The Supreme Court has right and far-right wings. Their justices might not be those you’d guess.
• The Klamath River’s dams are being removed. Inside the effort to restore a scarred watershed.
• ‘Humbling, and a bit worrying’: Scientists fail to fully explain record global heat.
• Islamic State claimed the attack on Russia. Why is Putin accusing Ukraine and the West?
• The standoff at Gate 36: Texas sends in the troops to block migrants from seeking asylum.
• Victims of a California mountain lion attack were brothers and avid outdoorsmen.
• Flood watches and snow warnings: The Easter weekend storm is proving to be strong, wet and windy.
• California is making fentanyl test strips free to organizations. How to get a kit.
• The IRS wants to give California taxpayers $94 million in refunds — if they file returns.
• Former official pleads guilty to embezzling nearly $16 million from O.C. school district.
• Sweet 16 pressure? It’s always sunny in SoCal for USC as Trojans ready for Baylor.

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Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

How one mall has become a culture-defining hub for Orange County’s newest Koreatown. The Asian-centric entertainment and dining destination offers a unique concentration of Korean culture just a few miles away from Buena Park’s newly named Koreatown.

More great reads

• AI companies are courting Hollywood. Do they come in peace?
• A trick to reduce stress? Spend 20 seconds a day doing this easy practice.
• Weezer’s Blue Album at 30: The inside story of the debut that launched L.A.’s nerdiest band.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Going out

• ⛴️ 🚴🏽Fourteen glorious things to do in Vancouver, the ‘California of Canada.’
• 🍴The ultimate guide to eating and drinking in Koreatown.

Staying in

• 💿🐎 Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ has arrived. Here’s what we know about the album.
• 📺 Jerry Seinfeld made a movie about Pop-Tarts. Yes, the trailer is as goofy as you’d expect.
• 📖 How many lives can one author live? In new short stories, Amor Towles invites us along for the ride.
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for Kaeng Lieng (Thai Vegetable Soup With Shrimp).
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

Legal trouble for a member of this Dodger superstar’s inner circle? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.

For the record: Yesterday’s newsletter stated that Allstate stopped offering new property policies in California following State Farm’s June 2023 announcement. Allstate stopped offering new policies to California customers in November 2022.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor

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