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.

Neiman Marcus Cookies

My friend Jarrah gave this cookie recipe to me  - it’s one of her favourites so I figured I would give it a go.  You may have actually seen this recipe before.  When Jarrah sent me the recipe I thought it had a weird name, so I googled it.  Apparently Neiman Marcus is a store (we don’t have it in New Zealand) and the recipe has been doing the rounds via email since around 1996.  Here’s the story that accompanies it:

“This is a true story... Please forward it to everyone that you can.... You will have to read it to believe it....
My daughter and I had just finished a salad at Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas & decided to have a small dessert. Because both of us are such cookie lovers, we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus Cookie". It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe and the waitress said with a small frown "I'm afraid not." Well" I said, "would you let me buy the recipe?"
With a cute smile, she said YES". I asked how much and she responded, "Only two fifty, it's a great deal!" I said with approval, "just add it to my tab".. Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Neiman-Marcus and it was $285.00. I looked again and remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, "Cookie Recipe - $250.00". That's outrageous!!!
I called Neiman's Accounting Dept. and told them that the waitress said it was "two-fifty," which clearly does not mean "two hundred and fifty dollars" by any POSSIBLE interpretation of the phrase. Neiman-Marcus refused to budge.. They would not refund my money, because according to them, "What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe - we absolutely will not refund your money at this point." I explained to her the criminal statutes which govern fraud in Texas. I threatened to refer them to the Better Business Bureau and the State's Attorney General for engaging in fraud. I was basically told, "Do what you want, we dont give a damn, and we're not refunding your money." I waited a moment, thinking of how I could get even,or even try to get any of my money back. I just said, "Okay, you folks got my $250.00, and now I'm going to have $250.00 worth of fun."
I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the United States with an e-mail account has a $250.00 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus... for free..She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this" I said, "Well you should have thought of that before you ripped me off", and slammed down the phone on her.. So, here it is!!! Please, please, please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250.00 dollars for this... I don't want Neiman-Marcus to ever get another penny off of this recipe....”

I thought the story seemed like a lie and one of the first things I found when looking up the recipe was an article on about.com providing evidence to prove this (that it is a hoax).  However, I tried the recipe out anyway.  The cookies are yum.  Jarrah reckons they are risky things to make because they taste healthy but there’s actually quite a bit of chocolate in them.  I halved the recipe, but I could have halved it again – the recipe makes heaps of cookies (apparently about 112).  I had two bowls to accommodate my mix and as I said, that was half the ingredients.  Anyways, here’s the recipe:

2 cups butter
680g chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
500g chocolate, grated
5 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal and blend in blender to a fine powder, I used oat bran instead)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups chopped nuts (optional, I used peanuts)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Cream the butter and both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.  Add chocolate chips, grated chocolate and nuts.  Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.