Easter Treats

Happy Easter! I hope you've all been having a lovely and relaxing bank holiday weekend! I've been a busy bee baking away in the kitchen and thought I'd share the recipes with you all so you can make your own tasty Easter treats (if you've got enough room after all the chocolate!)

Easter Cupcakes

(Recipe from Cupcakes & Muffins by Ann Nicol and bunny decoration inspired by Easter Bunny Cupcakes seen in TESCO magazine)

Ingredients
125g self-raising flour
125g caster sugar
125g soft margarine
2 medium eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

(To decorate (halved from original recipe))
75g unsalted butter
110g icing sugar
1 tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Ready-to-roll royal icing
Green, yellow, orange and grey food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to 180'C / 350'F / Gas Mark 4
2. Sift the flour and caster sugar into a bowl and stir together
3. Add the margarine, beaten eggs and vanilla extract and beat together until smooth
4. Spoon into 14 paper cases and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and firm
5. Transfer onto a wire rack and leave to cool

Decorations
1. To make the buttercream frosting beat the butter until light and fluffy
2. Beat in the sifted icing sugar and add the water in batches
3. Add the vanilla extract and green food colouring
4. Pipe onto the cupcakes in blobs using a star-tipped nozzle to create a textured grass effect

Daffodils

1. Divide the ready-to-roll icing into 2, mixing one batch with yellow food colouring and the other with orange food colouring
2. Roll out the yellow food colouring and cut out thin petal shapes
3. Take 6 petals, marking a line down the middle of each and pinching the sides to curve them, and place onto the cupcake
4. Mould a piece of orange icing into a pea-sized ball, flatten out and mould into a cone shape
5. Place in the centre of the flower

Bunnies

1. To make the bunny body roll a ball out of the ready-to-roll icing mixed with grey food colouring (I didn't have a pre-made grey so mixed together different colours to make my own)
2. To make the tail stick a smaller white icing ball onto the grey body and place onto the cupcake
3. To make the feet roll out the white icing and cut out oval shapes
4. Paint circles onto the ovals to create paws and place onto the bunny body
5. To make the carrots mould a long cone shape out of orange icing and make leaves using green icing

Voila!

Lemon Biscuits

(Recipe from 500 Recipes for Breads, Cakes and Biscuits by Mary Norwak

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour

100g castor sugar

100g margarine

1 egg, beaten

Grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon

Icing sugar

Food colouring

Biscuit cutters

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180'C / 350'F / Gas Mark 4

2. Sift the flour and sugar together in a bowl and rub in the margarine until the mixture is like fine bread-crumbs

2. Add the beaten egg, grated lemon rind and juice and mix to a stiff paste

3. Thinly roll out and cut using the biscuit cutters (I used Easter and animal cutters)

4. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 15 minutes

5. Place onto a wire rack to cool

4. Decorate with coloured icing

Yum!

Easter Nests

Ingredients

100g milk chocolate

Cornflakes

Mini eggs

1. Melt the milk chocolate in a bowl

2. Mix in the cornflakes TIP: Be careful to not put in too much otherwise it won't stick together!

3. Spoon into paper cases and top with the mini eggs

4. Leave to set in a cool, dry place

An Easter classic!

Happy baking :)

Love, Beth xxx