Easter Nest Cupcakes

Easter Nest Cupcakes

As I type this it’s the morning of Good Friday and I’m sat on a train passing through mountains and past lakes. I’m on my way up to my parent’s on the Isle of Mull once again to spend the Easter weekend eating food, baking cakes and going on hikes. Speaking of Easter and cake, it brings me on to this week’s recipe. I actually made this last Sunday. Just before payday I was excruciatingly poor and couldn’t actually afford to bake. My workmates very kindly clubbed together and organised a collection at work to raise money for me to get ingredients to do something worthy of Easter.

Easter Nest Cupcakes

I decided to make Easter Nest Cupcakes by combining a couple of old recipes. You can see the recipe for the cakes here, and the nests here. Below I’ll go into more detail. I also, for once, tried my hand at actually decorating properly. Attempting to use green frosting to give a grass look. I had some small success, although I crashed at a friend’s on Sunday night to watch Wrestlemania, and due to his flat being fairly warm, the icing melted and separated slightly. Losing the majority of the effect.

Easter Nest Cupcakes

Completely unrelated to the above, my mood has picked up pretty well this week. With some changes to my life looking imminent and a few small positive things happening things generally look on the up. There have been a couple of setbacks this week, unfortunately. With a couple of things happening that have knocked my confidence and annoyed me. Both of which being blog related. However, I have used some of it to push myself on and move forward with the Cake Care Package project that was already underway. In fact, go visit www.cakecarepackage.co.uk to see a rather fancy holding page for a project I’m looking to get underway. In the mean time, if you want to treat someone to a box of cake in the post, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Full contact details are on my contact me page.

Easter Nest Cupcakes

What do you have planned for easter? Don’t forget to enter my 2nd Blog Birthday Giveaway too!

Easter Nest Cupcakes
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 15 Cakes and extra nests
Ingredients
  • ***For the cakes***
  • 130g all-purpose flour
  • 200g granulated sugar
  • 65g cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 120 ml milk
  • 60 ml vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla
  • 120 boiling water
  • ***For the nests***
  • 300g Plain Chocolate
  • 3-5 Large Shredded Wheat
  • 1 Packet of Cadbury’s Mini Eggs or equivalent non-brand.
  • ***For the Frosting***
  • 100 grams good quality unsalted butter
  • 200 grams icing sugar
  • a little milk
  • Dribble green food colouring
Instructions
  1. ***For the Nests***
  2. Either in a microwave or in a heatproof bowl over simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water), melt the chocolate until it’s smooth.
  3. Break in the shredded wheat and mix together, coating the shredded wheat well.
  4. Transfer spoonfuls of the mixture to cupcake cases, allowing to cool slightly before adding the eggs.
  5. Chill in the fridge to set.
  6. ***For the cakes***
  7. Preheat the oven to 150°C and line your cake tray with cases.
  8. Mix together the flour, sugar, cocao powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Whisk until it’s well mixed.
  9. Add the “wet” ingredients, apart from the boiling water, and mix on a medium speed until well combined.
  10. Reduce the speed and very carefully add the boiling water. Slowly up the speed until it’s on high and allow to mix for around 1 minute. This will get a good amount of air into the mix.
  11. Distribute the batter evenly into the cases. Fill to around ¾ of the case. Depending on the size of the case you’ll get between 12 and 18 cakes, but always fill to about ¾.
  12. Bake for 12-25 minutes. The cakes will be done when a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  13. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly in the tray before transferring to a rack.
  14. While they are cooling prepare the frosting.
  15. Cream the butter and sifted icing sugar together until smooth. Add in the colouring and milk and mix until well combined.
  16. Transfer the frosting to a piping bag with a very small/fine round tip. Pipe a small amount into the center of each cake so you can stick the nests on. Before you do, pipe the grass around the edges of each cake. Around 3 rows will do.
  17. To do this press the piping tip gently against the cake and pull away gently, twisting off to make it look like a short blade of grass and move round to the next.
  18. Push the nests onto the top of each cake.
  19. You will have extra nests, and I'm not sorry.
 

6 thoughts on “Easter Nest Cupcakes

  1. Can I just say Mike, I really like how you’ve laid out the ingredients and instructions – makes it very easy to follow! (although I’m much better at eating cake than baking it)

  2. Lets be real, you’re the only bearded baker anyone cares about… *sass emoji* get those care packages rolling!

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