Mini Easter Egg Surprise

After the kids had their annual and rather small Easter Egg hunt in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard I had 12 small Easter Eggs left. Not long after marrying Mr Opoes I found an Easter egg inspired recipe that I was meaning to try. As everything we own is in a storage shed I thought I'd have a go and try to remember what I'd read years ago. I've also seen a heap of rainbow cakes on Pinterest and other talented peoples blogs so I thought I'd try to create the layered rainbow effect instead of having a marbel cake effect. I ended up only using three colours (white, purple and red) to create my Mini Easter Egg Surprise Cupcakes. I have since learnt that the Rainbow Cake to made up of several coloured layers of cake that are then joined together with frosting.

So here is the recipe I used to make my cupcakes. I wanted to see if I could make the batter a little more creamer so I added 1 tablespoon of vanilla yoghurt and 1 tablespoon of apple sauce. I used the apple sauce as it add sweetness, I reduced the amount of brown sugar to ½ a cup because of the apple sauce. If you aren't using apple sauce still use ¾ cup brown sugar.

Easter Egg Surprise Cupcakes

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ cup milk 

12 solid chocolate Easter eggs, foil removed

blue food colouring

red food colouring

Icing:

50g unsalted butter

2 cups icing sugar

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 180°C.

2.  Using an electric mixer, beat butter for 2 minutes until pale in colour and creamy. Add sugar one third at a time, beating well between each addition. Add eggs one at a time, beating for about a minute between each addition. Add the vanilla essence and beat until combined.

3.  Add half the shifted flour and baking powder to the butter mixture. Then add half the milk to the butter mixture. Mix well.  Repeat with remaining flour and milk. Mix the batter well until its well combined.

4.  Divide the cake mixture into three separate bowls. Add the desired amount of food colouring to two of the bowls. Make sure that the colour is stirred through the mixture really well.

5.  Spoon 1 tablespoon of vanilla mixture into each cupcake holder. Place the Easter egg in the centre of the cupcake pan.

6.  Using the two remaining mixtures spoon them over the egg. Fill each greased cupcake pan so that its ¾ full (an ice cream scoop is perfect for this).

5.  Bake muffin size cupcakes for 20-25 minutes and mini cupcakes for about 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.

6.  Transfer to wire racks and allow to cool completely.

Icing:

1.  Cream butter and icing sugar until pale and smooth. Beat until well combined.

2.  The mixture should be light and fluffy. The mixture should be a spreadable paste; if it is too dry add a little bit of milk, if too wet add more icing sugar.

3.  When the cupcakes are cold, generously spread icing over the top. Alternatively, you could pipe the icing onto each cupcake. Decorate as desired.

The finished cupcake with hidden Easter egg.

Megan