Easter is the perfect excuse for reliving childhood baking – you can get away with all the chocolatey, icing-ey wonderfulness that you are generally made to feel guilty about for the rest of the year. These Easter mini egg cupcakes are gratifyingly simple, and licking the spatula is not just permitted, it is more or less obligatory. They are also one of my favorite chocolate desserts so far.
Whether you are baking with children or not, these chocolate Easter egg cupcake ideas are fun to make. I enlisted an almost-too-cool 14-year old to help me; it was only by dangling the bag of mini-eggs in front of him hypnotically that I dragged him away from the Xbox and into the kitchen.
One great thing for me – chocolate mini Easter cupcakes are gluten-free! If you are on a gluten-free diet, be careful to check the labels of all chocolates in a hard ‘sugar shell’ – sometimes the shells contain wheat, but not so for mini-eggs. So when made with gluten-free flour, these make the perfect Easter treat for coeliacs too.
The sponge is as simple as it gets – I still tend to think in imperial measures, which means it’s a memorable 4, 4, 4, 2. This means 4 ounces each of flour, butter, and sugar, and 2 eggs. Then it’s just a case of smashing up some mini-eggs, throwing in some cocoa and some chocolate chips.
These little Easter mini egg cupcakes are guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and it takes next to no time to whip up a batch. Here is how to make mini egg cupcakes:
Easter Mini Egg Cupcake
Ingredients
- 4 oz self-raising flour I used a gluten-free blend
- 4 oz butter
- 4 oz caster sugar
- 2 medium eggs
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp milk
- A handful of mini-eggs broken into pieces
- A sprinkling of chocolate chips
- 3 oz icing sugar
- water
- cocoa powder
- 18 whole mini eggs
Instructions
For the cakes
- Preheat the oven to 180oC and put cupcake cases into a tin.
- Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the eggs with a pinch of the flour.
- Fold in the flour and cocoa powder, then stir in the broken mini eggs, chocolate chips and milk.
- Use a teaspoon to transfer the mixture into the cases.
- Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the cakes are risen and springy.
- Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
For the Icing
- Once the cakes have cooled, make the icing by sifting the icing sugar and adding a few drops of lukewarm water. Stir and continue to add small amounts of water until the icing is the right consistency to ice the cakes.
- Ice about half the cakes with the white icing and put a mini-egg on top of each one.
- Add a teaspoonful of cocoa powder to the icing and mix in, adding a little more water if necessary. Ice the rest of the cakes and top with mini eggs.
