Happy Easter!

Eggtastic Easter Nests

Easter is another time for party food other than birthdays. Families often come together on the Easter Sunday and celebrate the day with a meal. Easter is a fun day for children with all the chocolate they get and is probably the second best holiday to their birthday! When I was young I remember we would always have an cake decorated with little fluffy yellow chicks sitting on top of the icing and my Mum would organise an Easter egg hunt for me.

Here's a quick and easy recipe to make Easter nest cakes which kids can help along with.

Makes 30

Ingredients

1 normal-size box of Shredded Wheat (16 large biscuits or 500g bitesize biscuits) - I only used 12 as the chocolate didn't look like it would cover any more shredded wheat!

400g milk chocolate, supermarket own-brand is fine

2 100g bags of Mini Eggs

Cake cases

Method

1. Crush the Shredded Wheat biscuits into a bowl using your hands or a food mixer. (I used my hands here and got very bored crushing so much shredded wheat! Maybe kids might find it more fun mucking around shredding the stuff, so definitely a job for a little one!)

2. Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a microwave on a low heat, stirring every 30 seconds

3. Pour the melted chocolate into the bowl and mix with crushed Shredded Wheat

4. When mixed and all the Shredded Wheat is covered with chocolate, spoon the mixture into cake cases and press down in the middle of each to create a place for the eggs

5. Press two or three Mini Eggs into each nest.

6. Leave to set for at least 2 hours or less if refridgerated. (My mixture set very quickly just sitting out in the kitchen as it's so cold at the moment!)

Recipe from BBC Good Food website: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10484/easter-nests

Simple but yummy Easter treats to make, these are so quick to rustle up that you can't not make them! 

They're my favourite to make at Easter and I remember we always used to make them at Primary school to bring home to your Mum, along with a hand made Easter card.

As my Mum still works at the school I used to go to, I asked her if she was making them this year and she was very disappointed to say they were not!

Enjoy your Easter whether it's munching cakes, Easter eggs or tucking into a traditional Sunday Roast! 

A Late Christmas!

I know Christmas has just passed but since it’s still January I thought I could get away with showing you a Christmas cake recipe which you could use next year. Although Christmas parties are not usually just for children, children are definitely a main focus at Christmas time. Many grown ups love Christmas too but it’s the kids that have that extra excitement especially for all the presents Santa will bring them! This recipe for Rudolf Cupcakes consists of quite a bit of chocolate but the cakes do have some fruit in them, so aren't a completely unhealthy option! These cakes would be a great treat for kids at a Christmas party and you’ll find the grown ups won’t be able to resist them either! The recipe could even be adapted to make different animal cupcakes for different party themes throughout the year.

Rudolf Cupcakes

Serves 12

Prep 20 mins

Cook for 20 mins

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp milk
• 2 eggs
• 150g Stork (at room temperature)
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Zest of 1/2 small orange
• 45g dried cranberries, chopped
• 300g chocolate-flavour frosting or you can make your own butter icing
• 4x Curly Wurly chocolate bars
• 12 glacé cherries
• 24 raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350F/Gas 4. Line a deep muffin tin with 12 paper cases.
2. Places the milk, eggs, Stork, caster sugar, flour, baking powder and zest in a mixing bowl. Beat using an electric hand whisk. Stir in the dried cranberries and spoon into the cases.
3. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and lightly golden. Cool on a wire rack.
4.  To decorate, spread the frosting over the cooled cupcakes. Slice each Curly Wurly in half widthways, then cut into lengths to make antlers. Push the antlers into the cupcakes, place a cherry on each cake to make a nose and put 2 raisins on each cake to make the eyes.

Recipe from Morrisons Christmas magazine, 2011.

For those of you with a sweet tooth you can make the cakes chocolatey instead of fruity.

To make chocolate cakes:

Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder at stage 2 of the method instead of the orange zest and cranberries.

To make your own chocolate flavoured butter icing:

Ingredients

• 125g butter
• 250g icing sugar, stifted
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Beat the butter with half the icing sugar until smooth.

Blend 2 tablespoons cocoa powder with 2 tablespoons boiling water. Cool, then add to the mixture with 1 tablespoon of milk and the rest of the icing sugar. Beat again till smooth.

Recipe from: Handslip, Carole. The Sainsbury Book of Children’s Party Cooking. London: Cathay Books, 1985. Page 93.

Tips

• You need a very sharp knife to cut the Curly Wurlys as they’re stiff to cut but mind your fingers when you’re doing it as it can be quite tricky.
•  Try to use the rounder raisins in the packet as otherwise you end up with evil looking reindeers!

Here’s how my reindeer cakes turned out this Christmas…

I went for the option of chocolate cakes and made my own butter icing.

Unfortunately, the process was a bit messy as my helper, being my dearest Mum, got a bit over confident with the electric whisk and we ended up with cake mix all over the kitchen! And all over her! This being a lesson that children should always be supervised in the kitchen!

Hopefully you’ll have a less messy experience baking these cakes!