Easter '26 | Treat Box Project

This Easter I wanted to do something nice for my family so I decided to put together individual treat boxes for each of them. Each filled with a curated assortment of goodies.

I figured if I'm going to bake one batch of everything - then it would be really easy to just divide all the treats any portion them into boxes so everyone gets a little bit of something.

WRONG.

This was really hard actually. If I didn't think emoji's cheapen the aesthetics of writing — that is where I'd put the crying laughing emoji because why did I think making 8 complex and completely different desserts, while also working a full-time job would be easy.

I had to build out a schedule for my oven and grocery shopping so the balance was always right. Factors that I had to considering in my extensive list making and planning that lead to the culmination of 4 simple dessert boxes that I would distribute to my aunts, uncles and cousins.

• Fridge & Freezer Space

  • I have an apartment sized fridge that through out the week, has to actually house my normal regular meals and cannot be entirely Tupperwares of buttercream waiting to frost a cake.

  • I had to do the groceries for the actual ingredients that would then go into making the desserts which would also take up freezer space.

• Optimizing for Freshness

  • I didn't want anything to go out to my family if it wasn't as fresh as possible so that meant I had to be very strategic about when certain things were baked, prepped and what could be frozen versus what was best straight from the oven.

• Assembly Time

  • I have no notes here. It all was just extremely time consuming. I had created my first schedule overly ambitious - somehow anticipating that I would require ZERO breaks between finish my full-time job, and starting baking, or even on the weekends. I didn't factor in a single 'sit-down' yet I admittedly did have many 'sit-downs' that threw me wildly off schedule and then packing day was just a blur.

• Material & Ingredient Gathering

  • I used ~30 eggs for everything that went into this box and ? amounts of butter. My grocery store saw me frequently and often due to the fact that I couldn't do a single haul to put all the ingredients in my fridge as I still had to save space for everything else.

  • I also decorated individual Menu Cards for each item that described what was inside the boxes. This took some time to land on what I wanted in the box, how I wanted the images next to each item to look, then finally printing them. I don't own a printer so I used Canva to design, print and mail these to me as 9x6 postcards. They came super fast in the mail but still something I had to factor into the project time.

While I was happy with the final product, I know I could've done better. There was lots that I learned and want to do better for next time. My key take aways and learnings from the project overall were that;

Don't Do Wildly Different Desserts: While I initially really liked the idea of the large variety my family would be getting, having to constantly switch to a different baked good and pull out all the new, necessary tools was time consuming. If I were to do an assortment of cupcakes and cookies for example, those all pretty much use the same tools.

Whereas I ended up having to take out cake pans, springforms, piping bags, various piping tips, madeleine sheets, macaron templates, donut pans and the list goes on...

Consider the Final Layout: My boxes ended up being almost to small for all the desserts and when it came time to pack everything up, I realized I hadn't thought what I wanted the actual box to actually look like. I only considered the desserts at the individual level. They came out not as cute as I wanted it to but good enough. Next time I'll put more thought into how things will be arranged in the final package.

There were definitely things that panned out though! It wasn't all a disaster and I would do these same things for the next box;

Consider the 'Waste' from Different Recipes: When I say 'waste' I don't mean trash but I guess byproduct had a harsher sound to it. For example, when I was preparing to make the boxes, I knew that the banana pudding meant I would have a tonne of egg whites on hand afterward from making the pudding and also the custard for the eclairs.

So I pre-made all the custards the day before (which is recommended anyways because they need to set/cool fully) and the next day I made the macarons which uses only egg whites and the Swiss Meringue Buttercream which used up the last of the leftover whites.

Be Creative: I made a bunch of things I'd never made before and they came out amazing! I'm glad I tried different things cause when else do you get the chance to try new things.

If you'd like to try this project out or some variation of it, I've shared the PDF File to the menu card below as well as a list of all the different desserts that I made. I'll be updating the list with links as I write down all the recipes and post them on this blog.

Happy Easter!

— Vane

Lola Vickys - Easter Treatbox Menu.pdf

Download PDF • 3.93MB

Easter Treat Box Contents

• Dark Chocolate & Orange Madeleines

• Creme Fraîche Mini-Egg Cheesecake

• Lemon Lavender Macarons

• Lemon-Poppy Seed Donuts

• Hot Cross Bun Eclairs

• Old-Fashioned Carrot Cake

• Banana Pudding

• Easter Sugar C

  
  

  

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