Wednesday 18 March 2015

Recipe - Chocolate Mini Egg Cupcakes

Me and a friend were talking about baking yesterday and I was telling her how my husband had requested chocolate cornflake nests with mini eggs in. I had said that this was one of the easiest things to make and she said how about adding in cake and buttercream. These sounded amazing. So this recipe inspiration has to go to her, the gorgeous Sam.
While Finley, my eldest, was at pre school today I decided to make them. I didn't follow a recipe, I did what I normally do and just made it up as I go along. I followed my Nan's recipe of chocolate sponge and added a buttercream centre with chocolate coated cornflakes and mini eggs on the top.
So here is my recipe and how I did it.
What you will need
Approximately 18 cupcake cases
Something to pipe the butter cream into the cupcakes. I used disposable piping bags with a metal nozzle I got from the poundshop
2 cupcake baking trays

Sponge ingredients
6oz margarine (I used Stork)
6oz caster sugar
5oz plain flour
1oz Cadburys drinking chocolate powder
3 eggs
Buttercream ingredients
4oz butter
Enough icing sugar that you don't taste the butter and so its the consistency of butter cream
(sorry as I said I just made it up and didn't weigh the icing)
1tbsp vanilla essence
Topping ingredients
Cornflakes (I used Sainsbury's basic cornflakes, 25p for a 500g bag, I didn't use the whole bag)
Milk chocolate, I used a 400g bar (you could use dark or white chocolate if you like)
2 bags of mini eggs

Method

I pre heated the oven to 180oc. I have a fan oven so you may need to google the temperature for your oven (as you can tell I don't write cook books, haha)
Place your cake cases into the cake baking tray.
Mix the margarine and caster sugar until it is light and fluffy (this is what cook books always say, lol) and then sieve a 3rd of the flour into the marg/caster sugar mixture, add an egg and mix. Do this 3 times until all the flour and eggs are in the mixture. Add the chocolate powder to this mix.
Now fill your cake cases with about a tablespoon full of mixture per case. If you have a little left over at the end either make a few more cakes or divide the mixture between the cakes you have.
Now into the oven for about 20 minutes. Check after 15 as they do seem the bake quickly. Prick them to check it is cooked through. Once baked, remove from the oven and cool completely.
Once they have cooled you can make the buttercream. I always put the butter in a glass bowl and warm it in the microwave for about 10 seconds (20 if its straight from the fridge). But do keep checking it as you don't want it to melt. Once soft, sieve in the icing sugar. Start with a little to make it the consistency of buttercream and then keep adding in icing sugar along with the vanilla essence until it tastes nice.
Then with a sharp knife cut out a crater (best way to describe it) in the centre of each cake. Not all the way to the bottom of the cake , just to about half way down the cake, like you would with fairy cakes. Fill your piping bag with the buttercream, nozzle at the bottom and pipe some buttercream into each of the cakes. I was a little reserved to begin with but then found I had lots left so went back around to all of the cakes.


In a glass bowl break up all of the chocolate and place it over a pan of water on the hob. As the water begins to boil the chocolate will melt but make sure you keep stirring the chocolate. Once it is all melted mix in the corn flakes. Not too many as you want them to be coated well but also enough that they soak up the chocolate so its not to slippery. Leave the chocolate and cornflakes to cool completely as you don't want it to melt the buttercream.

Get your mini eggs at the ready. Once the chocolate/cornflake mixture is cool make a nest on the top of each cake. This is quite messy and you have to compact the cornflakes so that they stay on top and stay together. I then placed them straight into my cake tin and topped them with the mini eggs. I started with 2 on each cake, ate a few myself and then added the last few so a couple of cakes have 3 eggs on.

Leave them until all of the chocolate has set, otherwise if you move them the cornflakes and mini eggs will just fall off the cakes. Once set its time to eat!



If you decide to make these I would love to see some pictures and know how you got on. This is my first recipe post so please be kind :-)

Happy Easter!


Gym Bunny Mummy
Mums' Days

3 comments:

  1. These sound fab, I've never used cornflake nests on cupcakes, what a great idea! Thanks so much for linking up to #SundaySweets hope to see you back next week x

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  2. What a great idea... I've never combined chocolate nests and cakes before. Looks yummy! My first time at this linky #sundaysweets

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  3. Good god, they look absolutely GORGEOUS!!! I love the extra buttercream in the middle - I'd fill it with peanut butter! Ummmmm! Thanks for linking up to #TheList *runs off to find chocolate*

    xxx

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