Banana Walnut Cupcakes with Banana Icing and Candied Walnuts

I made these cupcakes a while ago for an SPCA cupcake day fundraiser some of the students had organised at school.  I think these ones never made it to the fundraising table – another staff member purchased them before anyone else got a chance!  And, good on her – these cupcakes are divine.  The flavours of the cake, icing and candied walnuts (and the caramel drizzle – don’t forget that!) go together perfectly creating one sophisticatedly moreish cupcake.  The candied walnuts are really easy to make and are my new favourite thing.  I actually first made them to go in a broccoli and cranberry salad (so good), but here they add a delicious crunch to the sweet taste of the banana infused icing.

Makes: 12

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
1 ½ cups self raising flour
⅓ cup caster sugar
60g butter
⅔ cup mashed banana
½ cup roughly chopped walnuts
1 egg
½ cup milk

Candied Walnuts:
⅔ cup chopped walnuts
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 ½ tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon sea salt

Banana Icing and Caramel drizzle:
130g butter
¼ cup mashed bananas
½ teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
3 ¼ cups icing sugar
½ cup caramel sauce (I used Hershey’s Caramel Sauce)

Method:
Cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 190°C.  Grease or line a 12 hole muffin pan with cupcake liners.
In a large bowl mix together flour, sugar and butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add in mashed banana, walnuts, egg and milk, and stir to combine.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pans and bake for 20 minutes.

Candied Walnuts:
To make the candied walnuts, place all the ingredients in a small saucepan over a medium heat.  Cook for 5 to 8 minutes, until the mixture is bubble and the walnuts have caramelised and turned a golden brown.
Line a dinner plate of baking tray with baking paper.  Place the walnuts on the baking paper and place in the refrigerator for at least 5 minutes.

To make the icing and to decorate:
Cream together the butter, banana, lemon juice and vanilla essence.  Slowly beat in icing sugar, adding more if needed to make a nice fluffy, spreadable icing.  If the mix is too thick, beat in a few drops of warm water at a time until the desired consistency is reached.
Pipe the icing onto the cupcakes and decorate with the candied walnut pieces.  Drizzle caramel sauce over the top of each cupcake.

Chocolate and Chunky Banana Cupcakes with Banana Icing

These Chocolate and Chunky Banana Cupcakes are a real treat.  The cupcake is a moist dark chocolate cake, with chocolate chips and chunks of banana mixed through.  The icing has the most delicious banana flavour (from real bananas!) and perfectly compliments the dark chocolate of the cake.  This is a great recipe to use up any bananas you have lying around.

Makes 12 – 18.

Ingredients:Cupcakes:
2 cups flour
1 cup white sugar
¾ cup milk chocolate chips (I used Nestle Choc Drops)
½ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg
1 cup plain yoghurt
½ cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 medium sized ripe bananas, roughly mashed (you want chunks)
Icing:
130g butter
¼ cup mashed bananas
½ teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
3 ¼ cups icing sugar
Banana candies for decoration (optional)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200°C.  Grease or line a muffin tray with cupcakes liners.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and baking soda. 
In a medium sized bowl, whisk the egg, yoghurt, milk and vegetable oil together until smooth.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until combined.  Mix through the banana.
Fill the prepared muffin cups so they are ¾ full.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out cleanly.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing and to decorate:
Cream together the butter, banana, lemon juice and vanilla essence.  Slowly beat in icing sugar, adding more if needed to make a nice fluffy, spreadable icing.  If the mix is too thick, beat in a few drops of warm water at a time until the desired consistency is reached.  Pipe the icing onto the cupcakes and top with the banana candies.

The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma

 
Food Tube is Jamie Oliver’s YouTube community of food lovers – the series showcases the most popular talent on the channel and has over 400,000 subscribers, if you haven’t already, go check it out. It’s free and updated weekly with new videos sharing new recipes, tutorials, and fabulous food.

 
Out of the Food Tube channel comes three great new cookbooks.  We’ve got The  Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma, Kerryann Dunlop The Family Cookbook by Kerryan Dunlop and The BBQ Book by and DJ. All the recipes featured in this series fulfil Jamie’s exceptionally high food standards of quality, flavour and fun.  

Being obsessed with baking, we got our hands on The Cake Book to review.  It’s great!  The book has four chapters of delicious seasonal recipes, plus an extra chapter covering the basics.  There are over 50 unique recipes, as well as hints and tips to get you set up and help your along the way.  Some of Jemma’s inventive creations include PB & J Cupcakes, Jamaican Ginger Cake, and Vegan Vanilla Fudge Cupcakes (click on the links for the recipes!). All the recipes have been beautifully photographed by David Loftus (I follow this guy on instagram – man he has a lot of talent and one awesome job). 

 
Cupcake Jemma (Jemma Wilson) is a part of the London street food scene and began baking professionally in 2006 with her own Brick Lane market stall, which has since turned into her hugely successful company Crumbs and Doilies.  She is super creative and her videos on Food Tube are fun to watch.    

 

The Cake Book is instores today and is super affordable with an RRP of just $15.99.  We can’t wait to try out the awesome recipes and collect the other books in the series!

 
The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma, RRP $15.99, published by Penguin Group in Jamie’s Food Tube Book series. Copyright Jamie Oliver Enterprises (2014 The Cake Book) Photographer: David Loftus.

Chocolate Lamington Cupcakes

These lamington cupcakes are yummy and an inspired twist on a kiwi favourite! They are the perfect addition to any autumn picnic but would be equally impressive served at a high tea – Mother’s Day is coming up next month so maybe keep these in mind. I made these cupcakes using my go to chocolate cake/cupcake recipe but if you have a go to trusty chocolate cupcake recipe of your own feel free to use that.

And if these delicious treats aren’t enough for you keep an eye out for the replay of New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker on Food TV, screening at 12.30pm, 4.30pm and 8.30pm on Saturday’s from April 5!

Ingredients:
Cupcakes
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cups flour
1 egg
½ cup milk
150g butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
½ cup boiling water
Ganache
250g dark chocolate
200ml cream
Filling
18 teaspoons raspberry jam
Topping
1-2 cups long thread coconut

Method:
Pre heat your oven to 180°C
Place all ingredients in a bowl EXCEPT the water.
Add water to all the other ingredients and mix. Once you have a nicely combined batter place batter into 18 cupcake papers.
They should take about 10 minutes but you will know they are ready when they spring back to the touch and a skewer can be inserted and removed cleanly, remove and set aside to cool once baked.
***While you are baking your cupcakes you can make up your dark chocolate ganache. To make the ganache you need to place your cream and chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place it over a pot of simmering water (making sure that the simmering water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl). Leave for 1-2 minutes before stirring slowly with a whisk, continue to stir until you have a combined, glossy chocolate mixture.
Refrigerate until it is spreadable (2-3 hours).
Once completely cool use a cupcake corer or your teaspoon measure to scoop out the middle of each cupcake, set the cupcake top aside.
Fill each of your holes with a teaspoon of raspberry jam and replace the top, this will enable you to spread your ganache without getting jam in it.
To decorate use a palette knife to spread a thick layer of chocolate ganache over each cupcake.
Sprinkle the coconut on top of each cupcake, gently pressing it on if needed so the whole top is covered.
I topped mine with little red hearts, but I have seen these with fresh raspberries when in season (which I imagine would be fab).
*** You can make your ganache ahead of time, it will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Funfetti Cupcakes

If you are a regular reader you’ll remember I mentioned last week that my wee guy had chicken pox. While I was at home with him he put in a special request for ‘dino sprinkle cupcakes’. I decided to make some funfetti cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and on top of his I sprinkled some tiny dinosaur shaped sprinkles. I didn’t have time to come up with a completely new recipe so I made a slight adjustment to the trusty ‘kiddy cupcakes’ recipe so I could reduce the size of the batch so that it made a dozen full size cupcakes and the same amount of minis.

Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1¼ cups flour
¼ cup cornflour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or good quality vanilla essence)
¼ cup long sprinkles

Buttercream:
125g butter softened
2-3 cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or good quality vanilla essence)
food colouring, if desired
sprinkles to top



Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line your baking tin with cupcake cases.
Cream the butter in sugar until light an fluffy, add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a separate bowl.
Alternate adding the flour mix and milk & vanilla essence to the creamed mixture, beat on a low setting to combine.
Fold through sprinkles, gently – do not over mix or the colours will start to ‘bleed’.
Spoon the mixture evenly into cupcake cases. Bake in a pre-heated oven for  15-20 minutes or until a skewer can be removed cleanly/they bounce back to the touch.
Leave cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.
To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. At this stage you can add the colouring to your mix and beat it to incorporate. Pipe onto your cupcakes in whatever manner you desire.

Strawberry and Cream Cupcakes

I absolutely love the orange cupcakes recipe Mel posted just over a year ago, they are so light and fluffy. I had a wee play with it and adapted it to make these cupcakes since strawberry season is starting! Mel’s Strawberry Shortcake muffins are an awesome Summer time treat too.  What are your favourite summer flavours?
Ingredients:
Cupcakes:1 ¾ cup flour
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons of freeze dried strawberry powder
2 large eggs, separated and whites beaten until stiff
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup kiwifruit and strawberry juice
100g butter, softened
Frosting:
100g cream cheese, softened
75g butter, softened
1½ – 2 cups icing sugar
2-3 tablespoons hot water
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Grease, or line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cups.
Combine butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla in a mixing bowl and cream together thoroughly.
Mix flour, salt, strawberry powder and baking powder together in a separate mixing bowl.  Add dry ingredients to creamed ingredients ⅓ at a time  alternating with adding portions of the kiwifruit and strawberry juice to the creamed mixture.
Fold in beaten egg whites.  Spoon batter into cupcake holes until ½ full.
Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.
To make the frosting, beat butter until light and fluffy. Add cream cheese and icing sugar with 2 tablespoons warm water. Add more warm water or icing sugar to soften or thicken your frosting.

Amy’s Secret Kitchen

On Saturday morning Simon and I headed along to check out ‘Amy’s Secret Kitchen’, a cakery that has recently opened in Ponsonby.  We reckon word about this place is going to spread quickly; something as good as this can’t stay a ‘secret’ for long.

Located on Brown Street, the store is a short walk from Ponsonby Road.  So, it’s close to all the shopping action but makes for a nice quiet break from the hustle and bustle, and you’ll be able to find a car park nearby!

The cakery is run by Amy (surprise!) and her sister, Charlotte, who are super friendly and inviting.  They sell deliciously moist cupcakes, biscuits, slices and other moreish sweet treats.  There’s also a range of iced teas on offer and they make milkshakes.  Yum!  We tried a range of their cupcakes, all of which were beautiful, but I definitely recommend you try one of the Caramel ones; the caramel filling in the centre won me over to become my fave.

Around the shop are some awesome gift ideas.  They stock a range of 100% soy organic skull candles, kids apron sets, chefs hats and take home baking premixes in big jars.  And, mans best friend need not miss out on the excitement either, also on offer are some pretty impressive looking doggy treats.  What dog could resist some special biscuits or a gorgeous little pupcake?  Cute huh?

Amy’s Secret Kitchen also do catering and take orders.  So, make sure you go check them out in their new store.  And, while you are waiting for a moment when you can pop along, you can find them on facebook, instagram, pinterest, or have a nosey around their website.

Amy’s Secret Kitchen
3a / 49 Brown Street, Ponsonby, Auckland
Ph: 09 360 0018
E: charlotte@amyssecretkitchen.com
www.amyssecretkitchen.com

Baileys White Chocolate Cupcakes

These Baileys White Chocolate Cupcakes are a serious, decadent treat.  They are easy to make, but the results are quite impressive.  The cake is soft and fluffy with delicious white chocolate chips.  The frosting is a buttercream with a hit of Baileys.  Trust me, these are good!

Makes 12.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups self raising flour
1 ½ cups caster sugar
120g butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
¼ cup milk
½ cup white chocolate chips

Icing:
¼ cup Baileys Irish Cream liqueur
120g butter, softened
3 cups icing sugar

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake papers.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer.  Mix in the flour.
Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Mix in the vanilla essence and milk.  Fold through the chocolate chips.
Divide the mixture between the prepared cupcake papers.  Bake for 18 – 20 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cupcake comes out cleanly.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before removing onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, cream the butter with an electric beater.  Add the icing sugar and the Baileys in three lots, alternating between the icing sugar then the Baileys.  If the icing seems too stiff, add in a bit of hot water, a tablespoon amount at a time.  If the mix seems too runny, add in small amount of icing sugar until you are happy with the texture.  I piped my icing onto the cupcakes using a 1M Wilton tip, starting in the centre and circling outwards.

Lemon Cupcakes with White Chocolate and L&P Ganache

Everyone seems to be going wild for the new Whittakers L&P chocolate (have you tried it? Thoughts?…) so I decided to give it a go and use it in some baking. I wanted a light, fluffy lemon cupcake and to use the chocolate as frosting. The ganache was a little trickier than I have found it in the past due to the consistency of the chocolate compared to white chocolate melts, if I was making these again I might try a light lemon butter cream and topping each cupcake with finely chopped L&P chocolate, that way the popping candy will really POP!

To make my cupcake base I decided to adapt one of the most popular posts on the blog – Orange Cupcakes – the cupcakes were perfect and even a little lighter that the standard orange cupcakes thanks to a special ingredient…

Ingredients:
Cupcakes
1 ¾ cup flour
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g butter, softened
2 large eggs, separated and whites beaten until stiff
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup L&P
Zest of one lemon

L&P White Chocolate Ganache
250grams Whittakers L&P White Chocolate, roughly chopped
150mls cream

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Grease, or line a 12 hole muffin tray with cupcake papers.
Combine butter, sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest and vanilla in a mixing bowl and cream together thoroughly.
Mix flour, salt, and baking powder together in a separate mixing bowl.  Add dry ingredients to creamed ingredients ⅓ at a time  alternating with adding portions of the L&P to the creamed mixture.
Fold in beaten egg whites.  Spoon batter into cupcake holes until ½ full.
Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.
Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.
To make the ganache put the white chocolate and cream in a glass bowl, place bowl over a pot of simmering water, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is melting and cream is hot (but not boiling).
Remove from the heat and stir to combine into a smooth consistency.
Refrigerate to cool and thicken, this will take at least an hour or two so is best done ahead of time.
Beat the ganache with an electric mixer until it becomes pale and fluffy so that you can pipe it.

Enjoy your Kiwiana cupcakes!

P.S – A big welcome home to Mel and Simon who are back from their OE!

Vanilla ‘Gender Reveal’ Cupcakes

One of the cool things about going back to work and starting at a new school has been making some awesome new friends! One of my lovely new friends Ashle is expecting her first baby in a couple of months, after her 20 week scan I whipped up some ‘gender reveal cupcakes’ for a bit of fun and shared them with colleagues at an after school meeting. If you are expecting or have a friend who is this might be a neat way to reveal the sex of your baby to friends and family.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes
3 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons vanilla bean paste
½ cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk

Buttercream:
250g butter softened
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
blue or pink food colouring

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180°C. Prepare two cupcakes/muffin pans by lining them with (gender neutral!) cupcake papers.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set flour mixture aside.
In another bowl/bowl of your electric mixer add the butter and vanilla paste. Using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and vanilla mixture on a medium-high speed. Until light and fluffy
Add the sugar to the butter mixture, one cup at a time. Beat for about 1 minute after each cup.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Add about one third of your buttermilk and mix to the butter mix before adding your a third of your flour mix flour mixture ensuring it has been incorporated properly after each addition. Continue to add the liquid and flour mixture until it all has been added to the cupcake batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking cup liners about two thirds of the way through.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer can be inserted into the centre of each cupcake comes out clean or they ‘spring back’ when touched.
Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack. Let cupcakes cook completely before decorating.

Decorating instructions:
To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. At this stage you can either add the colouring to your mix and beat it in or divide your mix and colour so that you end up with a variety of colours.
To make the cupcakes ‘gender reveal cupcakes’, remove about ¾ of the vanilla frosting and add it to an icing bag. With the remaining ¼ of the frosting, add either blue or pink food colouring for the cupcakes’ centre filling. Once completely blended, add blue/pink frosting to a second icing bag.
Using a cupcake corer tool (if you are lucky enough to own one) or a small sharp knife, cut a hole on the top centre of each cupcake.
Remove the cupcake ‘core’ and fill with blue or pink frosting.
Add cupcake core back to the top of the cupcake and pat it down.
Frost the top of the cupcake with the white vanilla frosting, to get the swirl look that I achieved I recommend  Wilton 1M tip.

Fudgey Chocolate Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream

These were a request from a lovely new friend I’ve made since going back to work. I thought they were pretty yummy and they seemed to be well received by my colleagues who enjoyed snacking on them during a meeting. I wanted something really chocolatey for the cupcake base so used our Chocolate Mud Cake recipe, it isn’t as rich or dense in cupcake form but tastes delicious and is a little fudge like.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons good quality drinking cocoa
1 cup hot water
¼ cup fruit juice
200 grams dark cooking chocolate chopped
1½cups sugar
250 grams butter
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Buttercream:
150g butter softened
3-4 cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon cinnamon (more or less to taste)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 140˚C.  Grease and line x2 muffin/cupcake tins with 24 cases.
Put the dinking cocoa, hot water and juice into a saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Remove from the heat.
Add the chocolate and butter and stir until melted.
Add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved.  Allow to cool.
In a large bowl sift the flour and baking soda together then make a well in the centre.
Beat the eggs together with the vanilla essence and stir into the cooled chocolate mixture.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently to mix (I found I was getting clumps of flour so I beat it very gently with the electric beaters for under a minute as not to overwork the ingredients).
Fill cupcake cases to two thirds and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, they will bounce back once cooked and skewer can be removed cleanly.
To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. At this stage you can add in the cinnamon to taste.
Decorate as desired, I used a 1M tip to pipe mine and scattered gorgeous sugar pearls from The Pretty Baker to brighten them up so they weren’t boring beige, I also put a sprinkle of cinnamon on some of them.

Easy Creme Egg Cupcakes

These cupcakes are a great idea if you want to do some baking and whip something up quickly for Easter.  They are really easy to make, yet oh so decadent.  I baked mine with mini Easter eggs hidden inside them, but you can leave them out if you like – just skip over this part in the recipe.

Makes 12.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 – 5 teaspoons cocoa
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup oil (sunflower or canola)
1 cup water
3 tablespoons vinegar (white or malt)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
12 mini Easter eggs (optional)

Buttercream and Decoration:
125g butter softened
2 ½ cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
food colouring (optional)
6 Creme eggs

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190°C.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with baking cups.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl with a fork.  Add the oil to the dry ingredients, but don’t stir.
In a small bowl, mix together the water, vinegar and vanilla essence.  Pour into the dry ingredients and mix together thoroughly with a fork.
Fill the baking cups ¾ of the way full with the mixture.  Place a mini Easter egg into each muffin cup so that it is just covered by the cupcake mixture.   Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. If you want coloured buttercream, add a few drops of food colouring and mix through.
Pipe a circle of buttercream around the outside of the top of each cupcake (use your favourite piping tip or simply make a piping bag out of a snap-lock bag and snip off one of the corners).  Cut the Creme eggs in half along the join.  Place a Creme egg half on top of each cupcake in the middle of the circle of buttercream.

Easter Nest Cupcakes

Aren’t these cute?! They are so easy to make and would make a lovely little gift for Easter (the cost of Easter eggs is crazy!) or an easy bit of themed baking to take into work or have on hand for unexpected visitors over the long weekend.

To make them I just used my Easy Peasy Chocolate Cake recipe and divided it between 20 cupcake papers. You could easily use Mel’s recipe for the Easter Chicken Cupcakes and just decorate your cupcakes differently so you have a bit of variety. To decorate I used a basic buttercream and added 2 tablespoons cocoa (you can add more or less and make it to your own tastes). I spread the frosting thinly over the top of each cupcake with a knife, piped a circle with a Wilton 2D tip so it looked like a nest, inside the nest I placed 3-4 mini eggs and a chick.

Buttercream and decoration:
125g butter softened
2 ½ cups icing sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons cocoa, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
Mini eggs (I used M&M’s speckled eggs) – you will need 3-4 eggs per cupcake.
Mini chicks

Cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar/cocoa alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with.

Are they good?! Max thought so, barely got through snapping photos before the baking thief struck.

Easter Chicken Cupcakes

While shopping the other day I spotted a pack of little yellow chickens made out of pipe cleaners at the supermarket – pretty tacky, but I bought them anyway.  They inspired me to make these ‘Easter Chicken’ cupcakes, which were really simple to whip up.  I love how the long sprinkles look like messy feathers.  If you are a bit of a fondant fan, you could whip up some little wings and feet for these guys too!
My friend Jarrah gave me the recipe for the chocolate cupcake that I used (I just added in some mini Easter eggs as a special treat); it’s a great recipe which doesn’t involve fussing around with melting butter or whisking eggs.  Thanks for sharing Jarrah!

Makes 12.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 – 5 teaspoons cocoa
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup oil (sunflower or canola)
1 cup water
3 tablespoons vinegar (white or malt)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
12 mini caramel-filled Easter eggs

Buttercream and Decoration:
125g butter softened
2 ½ cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
Yellow food colouring
Yellow sprinkles (I used nearly two 70g packs)
24 chocolate drops
4-6 orange jube lollies

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190°C.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with baking cups. 
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl with a fork.  Add the oil to the dry ingredients, but don’t stir.
In a small bowl, mix together the water, vinegar and vanilla essence.  Pour into the dry ingredients and mix together thoroughly with a fork.
Fill the baking cups ¾ of the way full with the mixture.  Place a mini Easter egg into each muffin cup so that it is just covered by the cupcake mixture.   Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. Add a few drops of the yellow food colouring and mix through.
Spread about a tablespoon of the butter cream on the tops of each cupcake.  Pour your sprinkles into a bowl and dip each cupcake in to cover the buttercream.
Dot the backs of the chocolate drops with buttercream and place two on each cupcake to be your chicken’s eyes.  Cut the orange jube lollies into triangles (you need 12 triangles), smear some butter cream on the back of each triangle, then place on the cupcakes to be the Chicken’s nose.