CUP-a-CAKE THIS EASTER...Eggciting Chocolate!  

21 March 2008

" 'Twas Easter-Sunday.
The full-blossomed trees filled all the air with fragrance and with joy."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Cupcakes for Easter...Spring is in the air!!

Stephanie @ The Adventures of Pie Queen has this neat Devil's Food Cupcakes recipe that I tripped upon one day. It's been on my mind ever since & I set to work making cupcakes that I wanted to make for Easter. My sis sent bags of Easter eggs & jelly beans for the kids from the US last week, & I had to make full use of them before the kids did!
Jellybeans Kaleidoscope

Of course the devil was dancing in the mind with a festive theme at MASTER BAKERS' for March being announced...Easter candy. ! The concept of Master Bakers is Nikki's brainchild.

It's sweet & simple. She picks the ingredient & you can bake whatever your heart desires as long as it has the ingredient! Can it get any simpler? I missed cinnamon last month, & made sure I got there in time this month. With candy as this month's theme, Nikki's says..."the Easter bunny brings the best candy. Halloween is just mini candy, valentines day you get conversation hearts and read hots, but Easter is the mother load of great candy. From the beloved Peeps to jelly beans and Cadbury Creme eggs, Easter just has the best candy."

I grabbed a handful of Hersheys' solid chocolate eggs & jelly beans & hid them...just in case they did the disappearing act by the time my baking was underway.

Easter Chocolate Cupcakes...

I also did some sweet devil cupcakes topped with crystallized flowers, which reflect my fascination for nature.

It breaks my heart to see the end of winter flowers here as the sun gets hotter & hotter . It was over 37 degrees C here today! PHEW!! Every year I pick the last remaining blossoms & press them for cards & craft work etc. This year I tried something different; in addition to pressing flowers...I crystallised a few! They turned out beautiful & crisp & I believe they can be stored for a year in a dry place. How lovely is that! No mean task crystallising them, but fun nevertheless! Actually what you have to do is to paint the flowers with egg white beaten with a tiny bit of water, sprinkle Castor sugar all over them, & then leave them in a dry warm place to dry. Put them to dry on a tray lined with butter paper or parchment. I left them in the car which was in the drive...the almost here summer heat took care of the moisture good & proper. I had beautifully crystallised flowers by evening!

NASTURTIUMS ... Not just another pretty flower...

Nasturtiums are a native of Peru, brought by Spanish conquistadors to Spain early in the sixteenth century. This bright yellow, orange or red flower traveled to England at the end of the sixteenth century as a decorative plant. Nasturtium buds may be picked in late Spring and pickled for use in salads as a replacement for capers. Click here for Nasturtium Salad! The flowers of a nasturtium are high in Vitamin C and thought to help prevent scurvy, lung problems and blocked bronchial tubes.

PANSY ... A beautiful fairy faced flower

The flower we commonly know of as Pansy is an ancestor of the tricolor violet (or Johnny-jump-up) and is a relatively new flower. Throughout history pansies have been linked with love. Puck, the fairy spirit from A Midsummer Night’s Dream used their juice to make “man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees.”

Devil's Food Cupcakes as adapted from Stephanie's blog...

Ingredients:
Butter - 1/2 cup
Cocoa - 1/2 cup
Dark chocolate - 50 gms (2 oz)
Eggs - 2
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Vanilla extract or strong coffee - 1 tsp
Flour - 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 3/4 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sour cream - 1/2 cup; or plain yogurt, or buttermilk
Buttercream / Ganache for icing
Candy / crystallised flowers etc

Method:

  • In a double boiler melt the chocolate, butter, and cocoa together. I did it in the microwave)
  • When everything's melted, stir until smooth, then remove the bowl and let it cool until the chocolate mixture is just barely warm.
  • Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 and line a 12-cup muffin pan with those cute little paper liners.
  • Sift the dry ingredients.
  • Beat the eggs + sugar+ and vanilla together in a big bowl,
  • When the chocolate's cooled off, scrape it all out with the rubber spatula into the eggs and beat together.
  • Add about half the flour mix, stir, add sour cream, stir, then add rest of the flour and mix gently again.
  • Scoop your lovely, gloopy dark-choc batter evenly into the muffin cups.
  • Bake 20 minutes, or just until a cake tester comes out clean from the center of the cupcakes. Don't overbake! Let cool on a rack, & ice only when they're completely cool.
  • I used a buttercream icing for a few & drizzled a ganache on the rest. Then topped them with candy or crystallised flowers.
One of my favourite lines since I was a kid...
'Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the flowers iz?'
Eggs on a roll...the daughter's got the eggs ready; all filled with jellybeans & chocolate eggs!
Easter eggs are specially decorated eggs given to celebrate the Easter holiday or springtime. The oldest tradition is to use dyed and painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jellybeans. These eggs are often hidden, by the Easter Bunny, for children to find on Easter morning.
Have an eggciting Easter this Sunday!

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