Week 4, Part 2 Pasg Hapus / Happy Easter!

Easter Cupcakes

Strictly speaking I am now in week 5 as it’s Monday, but I made these yesterday (Sunday), and I will be baking something else this week.  So please forgive this little incorrect detail!  As noted in Part 1 for Week 4, Easter is here, so I thought I would stray from Home Sweet Home in order to make something more thematic.  So I looked through my other cookbooks, there wasn’t a recipe that seemed to be quite right for the image in my head, so I’m going to take bits from 2 different recipes, by making marble cupcakes, with chocolate icing, and decorated with mini eggs.  I’ve merged two magazine recipes from my recipe scrapbook – marble cupcakes, and the icing/mini eggs element from an Easter chocolate fudge cake.  I went to a friend’s house on Easter Sunday evening, so I thought cupcakes would be a better option than a cake…

The Bake

The advantage of using multiple sources is that I can share the ingredients with you!  So here they are:

Sponge ingredients – makes 12

115g self-raising flour

115g butter/margarine

115g caster sugar

2 eggs

1tsp baking powder

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp milk

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, add the eggs, then the flour, baking powder and vanilla extract.  It’s all pretty simple.  Divide the mixture in two – I just made a line through the middle of the batter.  Add a generous teaspoon of batter to a side of each cupcake case, then top up to use what’s left of the vanilla half.  I forgot about putting it to the side for the first couple!  Then add the cocoa powder and milk to the remaining batter, and add a teaspoon of that to each cupcake case.  Cook for 15-20 mins on 180°C.

While they cooled, I made the icing:

Icing ingredients

100g milk chocolate (or I think any chocolate would work)

100g very soft unsalted butter

50g icing sugar

1tbsp cocoa powder

36 mini eggs (12x3)

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl – opinion is divided on this, whether to use the microwave to melt chocolate or put it in a bowl over a pan of hot water.  I find as long as you have it on a medium high heat and check it every minute or so, the microwave is so much easier.  Until you burn the chocolate, anyway.  Once melted, sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder into the chocolate, and mix.  The recipe said to wait until the icing is thick enough then cover the cakes, but as it was very runny, and I didn’t know how quickly it would set, I decided to dip the cakes upside down into the chocolate icing.  This ensured an even coating as well, and a nice finish.  I added three mini eggs to each cake straight away so they would stick.  The chocolate icing set really quickly, however that was a good thing as I needed to take my creations to my friends. There was quite a bit of the icing and mini eggs left over, so I ground a Weetabix biscuit into the mixture, which I stretched to three cupcake cases, and added mini eggs to them.

The verdict on the sponge cakes?  My friends seemed to enjoy.  A light fluffy sponge, with the chocolate icing and mini eggs adding another set of textures.  If you have mini eggs and milk chocolate still lying around after yesterday, this is a quick way to use them in a creative way! 

 

Normal Home Sweet Home cookbook duties will resume later this week, so Happy Easter and Happy Baking!