The Best April Fools’ Day Food Pranks to Feed Your Funny Bone
We've got 19 tricky dishes up our sleeves to fool — and fuel — your favorite people. But don't worry, they're more fun than foolish. Let the giggles commence!
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me with food, and the game is on. We know a bit about being duped with food at Yummly, so for April Fools' Day we've got our guards up and strategies ready. But we make our food fights fun, so in the spirit of the trickster holiday we pulled some of our favorite harmless recipes to fool your favorite people.
Hee hee here you go!
1. April Fools' Day Fries Made From Apples!
The family will do a double-take when you bring out these crinkle-cut baked apple sticks that are sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar and served with strawberry jam “ketchup” for dunking. If you don’t have a crinkle cutter, a knife will work nicely to create regular “French fries.”
2. April Fools' Strawberry Pie
Take a good look at this hot pink pie — you may see a brownie pie with a layer of "strawberry cream," but you’ll get a savory surprise! It's basically a meatloaf pie in a standard pie crust, topped with mashed potatoes mixed with beets. That sounds pretty good, actually, and how upset your victims will be probably depends on their age. Just be kind, and have a back-up sweet treat ready.
3. April Fools Berry Soda
Imagine taking a long pull of this sweet berry soda to celebrate spring. And you keep pulling, and pulling ... but no fountain of fizz ever reaches your mouth. Confused? Yes. Disappointed? No! The trick here is that the drink isn't a drink at all, it's a jello dessert made to look like a drink. Your victims might actually be happy to be fooled by this one.
4. April Fools' Day Cupcakes
If you're serving this to kids, they'll think they've been tricked by an angel. Picture sitting down to a spaghetti dinner and instead of getting a mouthful of noodles and meatballs, you bite into frosting and chocolate bonbons covered in strawberry jam! Delighted? Yes, you are, and so are your victims.
5. April Fool’s Day Chocolate Bunny
If you're dying to do a mean-spirited trick, this is what we can deliver: a chocolate bunny filled with broccoli or other veggies. The conflicting flavors will certainly throw off your victims, but it won't scar them the way biting into a chocolate-covered kitchen sponge would (just saying). The recipe calls for a chocolate bunny mold, paintbrush, and candy melts, but you could also create the same idea using a plastic Easter egg, a small pastry brush, and other sweet chocolate you might have in the house.
6. Brussels Sprouts Cake Pops
You probably never thought before how closely the shape of Brussels sprouts resembles the shape of cake pops. Now that you’ve considered the idea, you can imagine just how easy it will be to dunk them in melted chocolate and add some festive sprinkles to lure your unsuspecting tasters. This is another one where you want to have a genuine treat waiting in the wings to avoid a family feud.
7. Rice Krispie Treat ‘Sushi’
Here's an April Fools’ project the whole family can help create. Make Rice Krispie Treats the usual way with melted butter and marshmallows, but turn them into California rolls, nigiri sushi, and other favorites using fruit roll-up "nori," Swedish fish, and even gummi worms. Serve them with a bowl of chocolate syrup "soy sauce" for dunking.
8. Russian Roulette Cream Puffs #AprilFools
Mmm, picture tender homemade cream puffs filled with custard and whipped cream and dunked in chocolate. Well, filled with that pastry cream with the exception of one puff, which gets filled with … wasabi. Who will be the unlucky recipient? This is a trick best played on family members who can handle the heat — and the laughs.
9. April Fools' Meatloaf Cupcakes
If there's a cupcake that could lure someone to the dinner table, it's this one. Fancy mashed potato "frosting" is piled on top of a meaty "cake" with a tomato “cherry” to catch your targets off guard. It's the same idea as the strawberry pie, just in miniature form. And it’s tasty enough that they'll bounce back from the shock and awe in time for a real dessert.
10. April Fools' Grilled Cheese Lunch
Halloween is a ways off, but this grilled cheese fits the form of both trick and treat. Basically, it's pound cake baked in the shape of sandwich bread, sliced and toasted for a realistic look, and then spread with frosting where one would expect cheese. This is the kind of surprise just about any kid would love to find at lunchtime. A boxed cake mix and canned frosting make this April Fools’ Day prank easy enough to pull off that kids can help.
11. April Fools' Cake
This cake is designed to look like a Bundt cake drizzled with a sugar glaze. Spoiler alert: There's no sugar. The "icing" is melted mozzarella; the filling is made up of pepperoni, sausage, and pizza sauce; and the “cake” is made from biscuit mix. In other words, this is basically pizza, so your victims won't be that upset. But after a mirthful mouthful, they might still have a hard time trusting you again. We suggest you earn back that trust with a treat that is as pleasantly sweet as this cake is punitive.
12. Lemon Curd Eggs
This trick was composed with sleepy sweet tooths in mind. When the family tumbles out of bed and to the table, the last thing they'll expect from these sunny side-up eggs is a bite of lemon curd-covered meringue. This sweet take on the usual breakfast eggs might only fill them up to mid-morning, so make sure you plan a sensible lunch.
13. April Fool's Meatloaf
There seems to be no shortage of tricky uses for a Bundt pan on April Fools’ Day, nor lack of clever ways to disguise a meatloaf cake. For this one, you’ll combine ground beef with stuffing mix to help hold its shape, pack it into a fluted cake pan, then “glaze” your baked masterpiece with store-bought gravy mix.
14. April Fools Day Tacos
What would you get if you took taco shells made from baked cinnamon-sugar wraps; filled them with quinoa, chocolate, and peanut butter “hamburger;” and added strawberry “salsa,” coconut “cheese,” whipped topping “sour cream,” and black jelly bean “olives”? Why, you’d get a big round of laughs — and applause — for a very clever dessert.
15. Cracked Egg April Fool's Cupcakes
Part craft project, part dessert, this recipe is a great one for older kids to help create. You’ll paint plastic Easter eggs with melted white chocolate, then peel off the “shells” and fill them with vanilla cupcakes and a big spoonful of lemon curd “yolk.” A real egg carton helps pull off the fun with faux.
16. April Fools Neapolitan Ice Cream Cookies
If you must play a trick, do it with ice cream — not in the vanilla-sriracha swirl kind of way, but in a cookie kind of way. These adorably mischievous ice cream cones are cookies in disguise — the dough is mixed, colored, frozen (to keep the shape), and then baked to fit into wafer cones so when your targets take that first lick, they'll be surprised but not disappointed. That's our kind of April Fools’ Day food prank! And the whole treat is gluten-free, too.
17. Mud Pies for April Fool's Day
Combine crumbs from your favorite chocolate cake, some chocolate pudding, and Oreo cookie crumbs and you have a mixture that looks just like mud — but tastes so much more delicious. Crumbled chocolate donuts would be excellent if you don't have cake. You could also turn these into sundaes with a tiny scoop of ice cream and a drizzle of caramel or chocolate sauce.
18. Raspberry Fool
Not everyone has a devious side, so we're including a couple of April Fools' Day treats that are not beguiling but are blissful. Fruit fools are pureed fruit folded into whipped cream (and sometimes custard) for a light and sweet dessert that’s perfect on a spring day.
19. April Fool's Day Pineapple Fool
This last take on our best April Fools’ treats brings together a terrible — just kidding — a delicious combination of whipped cream cheese, crushed pineapple, and whipped topping with a touch of sugar. The best part is that you're not making a fool of anyone but dessert.
More fun with food
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