Malteser Bunny Chocolate Malt Mousse Pie

My name's Gem...and I'm addicted to Malteser bunnies!! So much so that when I saw them roll around on the shelves sometime in February I grabbed a few bags of the minis knowing they would make an excellent Easter dessert! Wrong! Of course we hunted them out in my baking cupboard one night when we were in need of a Netflix accompanying chocolate fix! Never mind I said, I'll buy more! So it's the evening before Easter Sunday and I ask the lady in Morrison's where their Easter aisle is and she tells me it doesn't exist anymore!! Fortunately they had a few lone bunnies left by the tills so I grabbed those..and decapitated them so they would fit in my tart! Note to self: don't eat the contents of your baking cupboard without assurances you will find back up!!

It wasn't a big deal in the end - half the bunny for my pie the other half for my mouth - everyone's a winner! Except for the bunny I guess.

This Oreo crust takes the pie to the next level of decadence! and the chocolate ovaltine mixed into the mousse gives it that nice malty kick. There was no need for pouring a whole bag of maltesers in the middle of the pie...other than the fact that my mantra is you can never have too much chocolate! you could equally cover the whole thing in cream instead because it is tooth achingly sweet (in the best kind of way) and the cream does help to cut through the sweetness...but please sprinkle a few maltesers on top at least if you do!

This was the perfect end to our Sunday roast lamb feast and it was the perfect sugary fix to get our bellies ready for the sugar coma of chowing down on our chocolate eggs from our egg hunt that was to come!

Malteser Bunny Chocolate Malt Mousse Pie:

Serves 10

Adapted from Beyond Frosting

for the crust:

275g Oreos

6 tbsp unsalted butter

for the filling:

225g cream cheese, cold

60g dark chocolate

1 tbsp unsalted butter

65g chocolate malt powder

115g caster sugar

2 tbsp double cream

for the decorating:

315ml double cream

65g cup icing sugar

7 Malteser bunnies

175g Maltesers

Grind up oreos in a food processor until they resemble fine crumbs.  Melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds and stir in with the oreos.  Press the oreo mixture into a 10" tart pan.  Refrigerate crust until filling is ready.

Remove cream cheese from fridge and beat on medium speed in an electric mixer for two minutes until light and fluffy.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

In a small microwave safe bowl, combine the chocolate chunks and butter.  Melt for 30-60 seconds and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.  Pour melted chocolate over cream cheese and mix to combine.

Add malt powder and caster sugar to the cream cheese mix and beat well until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whip 350ml double cream together with the icing sugar.  Remove 2 tablespoons of the whipped double cream and fold it in to the cream cheese mix.  Cover the rest of the cream with clingfilm and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Pour chocolate malt mousse filling into the oreo crust and let set in the fridge for 3-4 hours.

Just before serving, remove the whipped cream and put it into a piping bag fitted with a star attachment.  Pipe around the edge of the pie.

Cut the heads off the malteser bunnies, or if using minis use the whole bunny.  Place alternately in the swirls of cream.  Place a single malteser in the other swirls.

Using a sharp knife, chop some of the maltesers in half.  Pile up the half and whole maltesers in the middle of the pie.

Eat and enjoy!

I am sharing this for Cook, Blog, Share over at Super Golden Bakes

Easter M&M Cookies 3 Ways: White Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Coconut!

Happy Easter! It's still Easter Monday here in Vancouver so I'm trying to sneak these Easter cookies through just in time! I went to America last week and bought tons of Easter candy, I was so excited to get baking and then Easter just crept up on me out of nowhere! Plus we went on an awesome kayaking and camping adventure up the Indian Arm fjord for the weekend and so there wasn't much time to bake! It has been an absolutely beautiful Easter weekend here, with bright blue skies and so much sunshine! and I just have to show off the beautiful cherry blossom trees that are blooming right outside my house! I love it! After the gloomy and rainy never ending winter we've had here though I feel it's deserved! 

So to make up for my lack of blogging recently, I'm giving you a triple whammy! 3 blog posts in one! They are all M&M Cookies - made with different M&M flavours.  None of these flavours are available in the UK so just swap out ones that are available, or splurge and buy these varieties in specialist American candy stores! 

I had spied these white chocolate M&M pudding cookies a few weeks ago, and immediately pinned the recipe knowing that I would be able to pick up these seasonal M&M's in America (because we don't get them in Canada either, boo hoo!) and I picked up the white chocolate pudding mix there too!

I love how pretty the pastel colours are - they make perfect Easter treats to give away or just scoff yourself! The white chocolate pudding mix gives a subtle white chocolate flavour throughout the cookies without making them too heavy, and you get bursts of real melted white chocolate coming through from the M&M's that tastes amazing! 

White Chocolate M&M Pudding Cookies:

Makes 18

From The Recipe Critic

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup caster sugar

3.4 oz package white chocolate instant pudding mix

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups white chocolate m&m's

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat non stick baking mat.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and white chocolate pudding mix (just the powder).   Set aside.

In an electric mixer, cream together the butter and both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla extract and mix together.  Add the bowl of dry ingredients.  Beat together until just blended.  Stir in the M&M's with a wooden spoon.  

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out cookie dough and place 2 inches apart on baking sheet.

Bake for 10-13 minutes or until slightly golden.  Cool for a few minutes on the tray, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Eat and enjoy!

I also picked up some really delicious egg shaped M&M's that were filled with peanut butter! They were so delicious that my husband and I nearly ate the whole bag and so I didn't have quite as many as I needed to whip up this batch of cookies, so I subbed in some mixed peanut butter and milk chocolate chips as well as the remaining eggs! 

I was quite excited to make these cookies as they involved corn starch and corn starch cookies have got quite the rep these days! 

These were incredibly soft and crumbly and tasty! They had a really good peanut butter zing to them! and I just love the prettiness of the pastel eggs too!

Peanut Butter Egg M&M Cookies:

Makes 18

From Bakerita

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup caster sugar

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup peanut butter egg m&m's

1 cup milk choc and peanut butter chips

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter, peanut butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla and beat on medium speed until well creamed and fluffy, for about 5 minutes.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the flour, cornstarch, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix until just combined for 1 minute.  

Fold the M&M's and chocolate chips in with a wooden spoon, do not use the mixer or else they will break.  

Using a medium 2 inch cookie scoop, scoop out the dough and place onto a pre prepared baking tray 2 inches apart.  Flatten cookie dough mounds slightly with your palm, cover the tray in cling film/plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 2 hours.  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.

Bake for 10-13 minutes, until just set.  Allow cookies to cool on baking tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Eat and enjoy! 

The final cookies I'm sharing with you I made way back in January.  I had picked up some Coconut M&M's (my fave!) in Seattle and I was keen to bake them into some cookies so I adapted Tracey's recipe slightly to make them more coconutty because everything is better once it's been coconut-ified in my opinion! Yes, I'm making up words all over the show today! 

I'm definitely a pudding cookie convert! It produces a softer than usual cookie, and I like it! For all my English followers, boxed instant pudding is not something you'll find on your supermarket shelves so if you want to give these a go you'll have to get some instant jello from a specialist store like The Stateside Candy Co.  I'm not really sure that we have a UK alternative but if anyone has a go with something else then let me know how it turns out!

Coconut M&M Pudding Cookies:

Makes 28

Adapted From Tracey's Culinary Adventures

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup caster sugar

1 (3.4oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup coconut m&m's

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/4 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper of silpat non stick baking mats.  

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt together.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in the pudding mix (just the powder) until combined and then add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla.  With the mixer on low, gradually add the dry ingredients, beating until just combined.  Use a rubber spatula to stir in the coconut m&m's, shredded coconut and chocolate chips.  

Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto the baking sheets, spacing the cookies 2 inches apart.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through.  The edges of the cookies should be golden brown.  Leave the cookies to cool on the sheets for 5 minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.  Eat and enjoy!

Well that was an M&M overload! Hope you enjoyed...and get ready for more regular blog posts around here, my slacking time is over! 

An Easter Market Cupcake Stall at Bangor Uni & Mini Egg Rocky Roads

So 14 hours of baking, 150 cupcakes later and this is what I had to show for it! This was my cupcake stall at the Easter market my Uni put on.  

The things that couldn't fly off the table quick enough were these assorted boxes of mini's! I'd been saving egg boxes for weeks, along with some very thoughtful friends and sisters who did the same for me! My mom sent me that lovely flowery paper and so I decided to cover each box with it to make it prettier, and in case some people wanted to give the egg boxes as gifts.  That was a time consuming task - who knew that some egg labels are stuck on with such nasty adhesive that takes forever to get off! but I think it was worth it in the end!

People couldn't resist their cuteness and the opportunity to taste every cupcake I was selling without looking like a piggy! I made four varieties of cupcakes, including Cookies and Cream Oreo Cupcakes (I forgot to take a picture of them on the stall but you can see the mini one above)...

I also made Creme Egg Cupcakes...

and Coconut Birdie Nest Cupcakes...

and these Malteser Bunny Cupcakes were definitely the hit of the day and I sold out of these first.

Here's another shot of the mini's all lined up and ready to be bought! 

My mom got me this awesome cake stand from a charity shop! On the second row down you will see some Mini Egg Rocky Roads that I decided to make at midnight the night before the stall! I had finished all the cupcake baking and still had a whole bag of Mini Eggs left and decided I should really whip something up for people who don't like cupcakes (yes, these people really exist - who knows how or why!)

So I'll leave you with the recipe, it's pretty simple and easy to whip together.  They would be fun to make with kids, but make sure they don't get involved with the chopping of the Mini Eggs! I nearly lost two of my thumbs to this process! and that's not even an exaggeration.  I was using a super sharp knife and because they roll around when you try and chop them in half it was a dangerous task! My one thumb still hasn't properly healed and it was 3 weeks ago now that it happened!

Warnings aside, these were absolutely delish and would make the perfect addition to any Easter gathering this weekend!

Mini Egg Rocky Roads:

Makes 12 cupcake sized

From Cupcake Crazy Gem

300g milk chocolate

150g dark chocolate

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 cup Rice Krispies

1 cup Mini Eggs, chopped in halves or quarters

150g mini marshmallows

36 Whole Mini Eggs

Melt both chocolates in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Add the vegetable oil and mix together.

Chop up Mini Eggs, with caution!

Add Mini Eggs, marshmallows and Rice Krispies to the cooled chocolate mixture.  Mix together until combined.

Pour into cupcake cases.  Decorate each one with 3 whole Mini Eggs.  Press them slightly into the chocolate.

Refrigerate overnight or for at least one hour if you need to try them right away!

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.

Coconut Birdie Nest Cupcakes with Mini Eggs for Easter

I just finished an essay that is due in tomorrow, my reward is blogging this post! I don't want to have to think about verbal operants, listener and speaker responses or mand repertoires for the next little while so let's talk about cupcakes instead! 

These were the next Easter offerings I made for my cupcake stall! Coconut cupcakes with creamy coconut frosting, and a sprinkling of toasted shredded coconut that I arranged to look like a nest and then I filled the nest with Cadbury's Mini Eggs! 

I was even able to use the super cute chick toppers I got free in the Easter issue of my Love Baking Magazine.

As you all know by now coconut is one of my very favourite flavours! but I am aware that for whatever strange reason it is a bit of a love/hate thing for others.

Apparently for the people of North Wales, it's a hate thing! I only sold one of my coconut flavoured cupcakes! and that was to a South African lady.  

Seriously, it's so boring just liking plain vanilla and chocolate cupcakes - people need to be more adventurous with their tastes! At the end of the day though it meant there were lots of coconut cupcakes left over for us to indulge in so it wasn't all bad! 

Coconut Cupcakes:

Makes 12 Regular and 24 Mini

From Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery

165g unsalted butter, at room temperature

270g caster sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp good quality vanilla extract

187g self-raising flour

180g plain flour

187ml coconut milk

40g desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugar until pale and smooth, which should take about 3-5 minutes using an electric mixer.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition and adding the vanilla extract at the end.

Combine the two flours in a separate bowl.  Add one-third of the flour to the creamed mixture and beat well.  Pour in one-third of the coconut milk and beat again.  Repeat these steps until all the flour and milk have been added.  Fold in the desiccated coconut using a metal spoon.

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, filling them two-thirds full.  

Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until slightly raised and golden brown, or when an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and leave in the cake tins to cool for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Coconut Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

560g icing sugar

180g unsalted butter, softened

60ml coconut milk

Beat half the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding mixer on medium speed until the mixture comes together, then add the remaining butter and sugar.

Add coconut milk and beat until incorporated. 

Turn up to high speed and beat for 5 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy.

To decorate:

Toasted shredded coconut

3 packs of Cadbury's Mini Eggs

I'm sharing these for Cupcake Tuesday over at Hoosier Homemade! 

Malteser Bunny Cupcakes - Alphabakes

Last week I ran another cupcake stall at the spring market at my Uni, it was slightly less attended than the one I did at Christmas but fun all the same! If your definition of fun is 14 hours straight of baking :)

So over the next few weeks I will show you the Easter-y delights that I baked up for the occasion!

Starting with my favourite of the bunch - the Malteser Bunny Cupcake! 

I am obsessed with Malteser Bunnies, when that time rolls around each year that they start popping out on Supermarket shelves I can't help but buy one...every single time I go to the supermarket! Literally, I can't walk by them and not pick them up! It's not a good habit for my wallet or my waist line.  Luckily I have a rather fantastic mom who likes to supplement my addiction by posting me packages of the little guys, even when I'm not even living in the same country (that is if she can hold off eating them until my package is posted - the addiction must run in my family!)  In a package she sent me a few weeks back filled with baking goodies, cupcake magazines, cake stands etc... I called her and told her the one thing I was most excited about was the Malteser Bunny she had included.  She guiltily asked how many Malteser Bunnies I had received, so I told her just the one, to which she shamefully replied that she had bought a whole bundle but by the time it came round to post my package only one remained!  She felt so bad that she promptly sent me a new package the next day filled with bags and bags of mini Malteser Bunnies! Yes you heard me right - mini's!

When my mom first told me she'd been snacking on mini ones I thought she was making it up, I had looked all over in the supermarkets up here and not seen any mini ones, it seems they were rather scarce! but I knew if they were creating mini ones then they would just be called out to be used as cupcake toppers! and so that is exactly what I did.

I baked up a malt cupcake base, the most amazingly delicious chocolate malt frosting that you seriously need to have in your life, and then topped the regular cupcakes with the mini bunnies and the mini cupcakes with regular Maltesers! and a couple of sprinkles never hurt anyone.

I am entering these into the Alphabakes Challenge this month because the theme is 'M' based bakes.  It is hosted by Caroline Makes this month, and will be hosted by Baking Addict next month.

Malt Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular cupcakes and 24 mini's

From Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery

165g unsalted butter, at room temperature

180g light soft brown sugar

150g golden caster sugar

3 large eggs

187g self raising flour, sifted

90g plain flour, sifted

75g Ovaltine (malted drink) powder

187ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

3/4 tsp good quality vanilla extract (I use Nielsen-Massey)

11/2 tbsp sour cream

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Line the cupcake trays with cupcake cases.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars until pale and smooth, which should take about 3-5 minutes using an electric mixer.  Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition.

Combine the flours and Ovaltine in a separate bowl.  Mix the milk, vanilla extract and sour cream in a jug.  Add one-third of the flour and Ovaltine mixture to the creamed mixture and beat well.  Pour in one-third of the milk and beat again.  Repeat these steps until all the flour mixture and milk have been added.

Fill the cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until slightly raised and golden brown.  If a skewer inserted into the middle of one cupcake comes out clean then they are done.

Remove fromt he oven and leave in the cake tins to cool for about 10 minutes before carefully placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

Malted Belgian Chocolate Frosting:

Makes enough to frost 50 cupcakes and to have plenty leftover!

From Sweetapolita

500g icing sugar

450g unsalted butter

3 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup Ovaltine powder

250g Callebaut* Chocolate (I used 200g Callebaut and 50g Milk chocolate)
1/2 cup double cream

In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine half the icing sugar and butter and beat on low speed for one minute.  While that is mixing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool. Add the rest of the icing sugar and butter to the stand mixer and mix on medium speed until completely combined (I do it in two stages so as not to completely cover my kitchen in icing sugar).

Add vanilla and Ovaltine, and beat on low speed until well combined.

Add the melted, cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes). Add double cream and beat on high speed for one minute.

The recipe recommends using it straight away, which I did to frost the cupcakes.  I also refrigerated the leftovers and iced some sugar cookies with it a few days later and it was still delicious.  I just left it to get up to room temperature and then whipped it up in my KitchenAid again before using it.

*Baker's note: Callebaut is a brand of Belgian chocolate - which is the reason the recipe title is Belgian chocolate frosting.  It is good quality chocolate with 70% cocoa solids.  You can just as easily make it with Green and Black's or any other high cocoa solid content chocolate...but if you want to make it with the real deal you can buy it from here.

The Good Friday Feast: An Easter Dessert Bar!

Don't you just love blogging! This weekend I got left this rather lovely anonymous comment on a previous blog post:

'aren't you a bit fat to be eating cupcakes and drinking milkshakes all day long - get a life'

Way to give someone a complex! if my cupcake eating and milkshake drinking offends you so much, then don't follow my blog, no-one is forcing you to look! and the cupcake eating and milkshake drinking will only continue so I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish with that comment! 

As you can see the cupcake eating certainly continued this weekend with my Easter dessert bar I gave you a sneak peek of last week! Quite a few things changed from my initial plan due to lack of time and not being able to find half my baking supplies/cake stands that are still somewhere in boxes in my parents cellar! but I was still pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Here are my coconut cupcakes with yellow coconut frosting and a hand made little chocolate easter egg on top! 

I also made a few mini's, topped with what else...mini egg's and thought this little egg box was a cute substitute since most of my stands and cake plates were m.i.a! These lovely little striped egg toppers you see were a gift from my friend Jade.

One of the stars of the shows had to be this Cadbury's Creme Egg chocolate fudge cake which my sister designed for her company as part of their Easter range and she was kind enough to make us one too! 

You can see from this angle the egg in the middle of the cake, made from liquid fondant, even has a golden egg at it's centre! fancy! 

She also baked up some delicious lemon bars...

and my mom knowing my love of polka dots and that our colour scheme was going to be yellow and green bought these cute little bunnies too! 

My sister Mel came up trumps with these flower shaped butter cookies.  You can find the recipe for them here

and one of my cupcake hating brother in law's favourite additions to the table were these oreo pops! It also comes in handy when you have a dad who has his own spraybooth and paint mixing machine and can turn vases and buckets into any colour you want to tie in with your dessert bar - thanks Dad! 

We were slightly disappointed by the Rabbit whoopies, the wilton bunny whoopie pie tin I bought especially should not be recommended to anyone, but they still tasted good! 

My very talented mom helped with the staging of the table and she hand picked these flowers from our garden to make this lovely little arrangement.  

My sister Mara made this lovely bunting which helped tie the table together, and she also saved the day when our Macbook died just as we were preparing the snazzy little labels (yes we forgot the charger cable...which is also why I couldn't blog this little delight for you before Easter Sunday which is what I intended to do!!) and so she made some scrapbooking style ones for us instead.

I realise I am a bit of a perfectionist and like things to be 'just so' and was accused of being a 'dessert bar-zilla' this weekend! so maybe it's time to give them a break for a while! thanks to my awesome family for helping make our Easter one such a success and putting up with me being a stress-head in the lead up to it! 

I hope you all had as lovely an Easter as we did, and were able to spend it with your families too! 

If you want to check out what we got upto you can see it here.

A sneaky Easter peak!

Just a little taster of what's to come this weekend...check back soon for pictures of the real thing!

How I love dessert bars!