Cadbury's Creme Egg Cupcakes for Easter

You can probably tell that these were the last cupcakes I made of the night in preparation for the stall because by this time I was just ready to get into bed and so I only managed to snap one quick photo! 

It seems I've been confusing a few of you with my various postings about the stall! It's not something I do weekly - I probably couldn't keep up with 14 hours straight of baking each week! It was a one off Easter market that my Uni was running a few weeks back.  So I baked for 14 hours the day before and then sold my cupcakes at the stall the next day.  I've just been posting the different cupcakes I made with their accompanying recipes in the lead up to Easter and since these are the last cupcakes my next blog post will be about the event itself.  

I have a confession to make...I'm not the biggest fan of creme eggs.  I would probably rather eat any other  flavour of easter egg than this one but I know it's pretty popular among everyone else so I felt I couldn't run an Easter cupcake stall without some creme egg cupcakes featuring, and they were very popular on the day!

I took my inspiration for the cracked eggs from Sticky Pinny, whose creme egg cupcakes helped her to win the chocolate bar challenge at Iron Cupcake Leeds.

I used her recipe for the yellow creme egg filling type frosting and it tasted just like the real deal! so much so that people even asked me if I had melted real creme egg filling and mixed it in to make it taste so life like! I used a basic vanilla frosting for the other half and piped it on two tone to try and create the effect that it was oozing from the mini cracked egg on top! 

Chocolate Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular and 12 mini

From Cupcakes From the Primrose Bakery

115g good quality chocolate, I used 70% Valrhona 

85g unsalted butter, at room temperature

175g soft light brown sugar

2 large eggs, separated

185g plain flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

250ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Line cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

Melt the chocolate in 30 second intervals in the microwave, or in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Leave to cool slightly.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a free standing mixer until pale and smooth.  In a separate bowl and with clean beaters, beat the egg yolks for several minutes.  Slowly add the egg yolks to the creamed butter and sugar and beat well.  Next, add the chocolate to this mixture and beat well.

Combine the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a separate bowl.  Combine the milk and vanilla together in a measuring jug.  Add the flour mixture to the free standing mixer, alternating with the milk and vanilla.  Beat well after each addition.

In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form.  Carefully fold the egg whites into the main batter using a metal spoon.  Do not beat or you will take the air out of the cake.

Fill the cupcake cases 2/3 full.  Bake for 20-25 minutes for the regular cupcakes and 13-15 minutes for the mini's.  Let the cupcakes cool in pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Creme Egg Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From Sticky Pinny

170g golden syrup

60g unsalted butter, at room temperature

375g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

Yellow food colouring (next time I'd make mine more orange, as the yellow didn't match up with the colour from inside the creme egg so well)

Mix the butter, syrup and vanilla in the bowl of a free standing mixer.  

Gradually add the icing sugar, then the food colouring and carry on beating until smooth.  

*It is very sweet frosting by itself, originally it was paired with cream cheese frosting which would cut some of the sweetness.  I was leaving mine frosted overnight and didn't want to put them in the fridge so I used regular vanilla frosting instead but if I was making them on the day I would use cream cheese too.

Vanilla Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From Cupcakes From the Primrose Bakery

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature

60ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

1 tsp good quality vanilla extract

500g icing sugar, sifted

In a freestanding mixer, beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar until smooth.

Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.

In a piping bag, put yellow creme egg frosting down one side and the vanilla frosting down the other side.  Pipe a small amount onto a plate until the colours start to come out in equal amounts.

Pipe on to your cupcake.

To decorate:

3 packs of mini Creme Eggs

Cut one mini egg in half per regular sized cupcake.  Arrange them in your frosting so it looks like the Creme Egg filling is spilling out and becoming the frosting.  Use one half on top of each mini cupcake.