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Making Easter: Resurrection Cookies - Easter 2022
By guest blogger, Sophie Lauridsen
Is it just me, or is explaining Easter to an almost-three-year-old hard?!
It’s just not quite as sweet and lovely as Christmas, with dear baby Jesus reaching out to give your preschooler a hug. Easter IS love-filled and beautiful and Jesus’ arms are still outstretched, but in a way that is kinda scary! It’s hard to watch/read/hear, even for us adults. Even for adults like me who have spent thirty years hearing this story every Easter.
It’s hard and intimidating AND, this year, I’m still determined to make this story the centre of our family’s Easter season and rhythms. So alongside watching a video or two, plus reading the Easter story in our favourite, The Jesus Storybook Bible, this past weekend we gave a batch of ‘Resurrection Cookies’ a go!
Baking with my almost-three-year-old can be both delightful AND a huge test of my patience. Three year olds seem to believe they can do almost any task all by themselves! Which is wonderful in the morning when I’m trying to feed my five-month-old and I need Poppy to get herself dressed independently, but difficult when it involves spooning the stickiest-meringue-ever-made neatly onto a tray in the middle of my just-cleaned kitchen.
Anyway, on Sunday afternoon, armed with the recipe card from our local kids’ church leader (in my case, my sister), we gathered our supplies and got baking!
The great thing about this recipe and resource is that the method for making the cookies also guides you in telling the story of what happened to Jesus at Easter. I did have to slightly change up the language since Poppy is quite young, especially when I noticed her start to get teary when we heard about Jesus being hurt by the soldiers (sweet girl!), but generally it was such a helpful, alternative way to continue exploring the story of Easter.
At times, I wondered if Poppy was listening as I shared the next part of the story, but her comments and responses showed she was soaking it all in. In fact, bashing the pecans, tasting the salt, smelling the vinegar and separating eggs actually DID all help in making a sensory experience that added to the story, rather than distracting from it!
After making the meringue mixture (which you WILL need either a stand or hand mixer for - it requires 12-15min of mixing!!) and folding in the pecans, you spoon meringues onto a tray, pop them in the pre-heated oven, switch the oven OFF and then seal the oven with some tape! This may have been Poppy’s favourite part – getting to stick the tape over the door, just like the solders rolling the stone to seal the tomb. And then you leave them, ALL NIGHT. It’s worth sacrificing the use of your oven for the rest of the night because in the morning, you get that cute still-in-your-PJs-excited dash to the kitchen to check on the cookies, and the delighted face in response to breakfast including the first bite of a cookie. And what do ya know – those cookies are empty, just like that tomb on the very first Easter!
I would definitely recommend you give it a try with your kiddo(s)! It would be so fun and meaningful to do over the Easter weekend, but was also helpful for us doing it earlier in the season as we are still trying to discover the story in a variety of ways! You can find the link to the recipe card here, and my suggestion would be to also have a storybook Bible on hand so you can do more of a deep dive into the story as needed/wanted! Have fun! And don’t worry about the mess – it’ll clean up!
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD OUR RECIPE CARD + OUR OTHER EASTER FAMILY TIME CARDS
