Easter is such a lovely time of year and it is made even better by this glorious weather. Not that you really want to be stuck in your kitchen, but if the urge takes you, here are some easy ideas for decorating Easter cupcakes.
These are white chocolate chip cupcakes filled with seedless raspberry jam, but you could use a chocolate recipe and just use mini eggs, Easter chicks and hundreds and thousands to decorate. Once baked, I used a teaspoon to scoop a bit of cake out from the middle and filled them with the jam, but lemon curd works really well too with white chocolate.
I did try making white chocolate buttercream (by melting 100g Green and Blacks white chocolate and mixing it into 4 tablespoons of vanilla icing) – but doing this does make them extremely sweet. But go for it if you haven’t had enough of a chocolate fix by the end of the Easter weekend!
I’m sending this post over to the lovely Julia at A Slice of Cherry Pie as she is hosting her annual Easter Cake Bake until Sunday 1st May. You can pop over to her blog and see the previous years’ entries for lots more Easter inspiration!
To pipe the buttercream, I used a Silicone Piping Set, which Lakeland kindly sent me to try out. It was very easy to use, gave a good piped result and best of all, it was really easy to clean and re-use. You just flip it inside out and wash it, or it can be popped into the dishwasher. As its made of silicone you also get a good grip when holding it to ice and it’s easy to fill (I put mine into a pint glass to free up my two hand to fill with icing.) It’s available at Lakeland for £8.99 and until 2nd May you can get free delivery on all orders over £20.00.
For my birthday, I also got some beautiful PiP Studio china wear which will be gracing my Easter table - the pretty and delicate pink teacup and saucer below filled with mini eggs. Again, Lakeland have some of the range on offer, including the tea cups, a beautiful teapot, milk jugs, a fruit bowl and a gorgeous cake stand. I am totally in love with this range, the designer is called Anke, though her nickname was PiP and she’s based in the Netherlands. You can view some of the collection here PiP Studio Collection although a little note, Lakeland tell me they were only stocking it as a seasonal special so it may well not be around for much longer. You could contact PiP Studio UK to find other stockists.
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| PiP Studio Collection Tea Cup and Saucer |
The recipe below makes 18 very light and crumbly cupcakes – I use the bigger cases and bake them in a muffin tin.
White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes
Makes 18
Ingredients:
(Cupcakes)
375 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon salt
120ml milk
120ml vegetable or rapeseed oil
1 teaspoon vanilla essence or extract
115g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
225g caster sugar
3 eggs
150g white chocolate chips
50g seedless jam
(Vanilla Buttercream)
110g unsalted butter at room temperature
500g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons of milk
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
Method
For the Vanilla Buttercream
Method
 Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!
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| http://www.asliceofcherrypie.com/ |
Ren Behan
Ren Behan is a British-born food writer of Polish descent. She is a mum to two young children (6 and 3) and spends lots of time with them in the kitchen. Ren writes about seasonal, family-friendly food on her blog www.renbehan.com and about Polish food on her site www.mypolishkitchen.co.uk. She also contributes recipes and articles to online and print food publications. Ren holds a Diploma in Food Journalism with Distinction and has completed a Food Styling course at Leiths School of Food and Wine. Full Profile on Google+
>These are so pretty! With original flavours too.I love the cup and saucer – very girly!
If you didn't like the idea of buttercream on the cupcake, what would you suggest as an alternative?
I love your photographs! Which camera are you using?
>Thank you so much. Hope you had a great Easter. A good alternative to buttercream on a cupcake is just freshly whipped cream, perhaps with a smidge of sugar or vanilla. It needs to be quite firm, so as not to just slide off, but not so firm that it starts tasting buttery! My camera is a Nikon – I'm still very much a novice!
>Thanks for the tip!
If you are a novice – it certainly doesn't show – very professional
>The photos look brilliant and the cakes even better. The idea of the little bit of jam in them sounds wonderful, and a nice little surprise.
>Thanks James, I'm guessing you came over from Julia's blog? It's always nice to find a surprise inside a cupcake! Though I would love a slice of your lemon Victoria sponge and I remember the bluebells from you post too.
>Wow!!!! Beautiful photos! Fabulous site……
Awesome – thanks for including me! You're the best. Hope you are doing well.
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