Nested Easter Egg Cupcakes – A fast and easy bake-it-pretty dessert.
Nested Easter Egg Cupcakes
No long post to follow and no recipe in this one. This is just a simple crafty cupcake. I couldn’t sleep last night and was struck with this bit of inspiration after collecting sticks with my 3-year-old. I have to say, I’m quite happy with how these Nested Easter Egg Cupcakes turned out.
A few notes:
1. Prepare you preferred cupcake and frosting.
2. For the eggs I used Cadbury Mini Eggs.
3. For the nest look, melt some chocolate and spread it to an 1/8 of an inch on parchment. Cool in fridge for 5 minutes. Once removed, start at one end of the parchment and roll to the other end. The chocolate will crack in shreds as you roll it.
4. Work quickly as the chocolate tends to melt from the warmth of your hands. If it does, return the chocolate to the fridge for a few minutes.
5. Lastly, Happy Easter!
I finally found it – my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe goes to Cook’s Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
I wanted the perfect chocolate chip cookie with a crispy edge and chewy center for texture, while the flavor needed to have a soft buttery toffee-like flavor that would not overwhelm the chocolate chips. After baking more than a hundred cookies, I realized there are as many ways to make a chocolate chip cookie as there are stars in a galaxy.
I’m sure if my Kitchen Aid could speak it would have told me to shove it with my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
Marching on without my Kitchen Aid by my side, I decided to opt for a recipe that required no room temping butter and no creaming. In fact, according to the recipe the instructions calls for melted the butter. Skeptical but willing I followed the directions. Along the way I was certain the cookies would end up straight in the trash bin and not the cookie jar. Melted butter usually means flat round discs rather than nice shapely cookies.
Easter Tea Cakes – Dipped in poured buttercream frosting. Huh? Yep, that’s right Fancy Folks, poured fondant kicked to the side. These petite and dainty little tea cakes have been themed with a pastel color palette for Easter. Keep your teacakes fancy like these or crash the porcelain-tea-sipping party with some different shapes and colors.
Easter Tea Cakes
First let me confess, this is The Cheat version of my Easter Tea Cakes. Generally, when I make tea cakes I use Joy of Baking’s Pound Cake recipe. But with the Hub in the hospital and waiting on oven repairs, I wasn’t able to. Out of time and without an oven. . . .Sara Lee to the rescue.
For those who follow me you already know what Cheats are and that they usually follow a Purist version, that is recipes made from scratch
There was a time in my life when I use to really turn my nose up to boxed or pre-made bake goods—my one snobbery in life (okay, that and books). Then my family came along and between them and sometimes having a 50 hour work week, I’ve come to embrace some of my cheating recipes.
However, I will say, for me there’s just not the same satisfaction in using The Cheats. Yeah, it’s timesaving, but I love baking because I love creating, testing and discovering.
That being said, using the “The Cheat” Sara Lee pound cake, led me to my latest discovery. I originally planned to use CakeJournal’s poured fondant, but had to think of an alternative when I realized I did not have white fondant on hand.
Frustrated at first, but determined not to be completely beaten out of making my Easter Tea Cakes. I melted some buttercream for a poured version. After a few failed attempts that ranged from a lumpy mess to an oily and milky drool-like consistency and two pound cakes later, I finally hit it right. The key is to melting it slowly.
And boy do I love it! It’s so easy and so perfectly smooth. But the absolute best part—it taste so much better then fondant. Continue reading Easter Tea Cakes
