Easter Nest Cupcakes

for the

Easter Weekend Tea Time Table

It’s Easter Saturday and only a day away from all those Easter Egg hunts and waking up to see what Easter bunny has left for us this year! Now, I don’t know about you, but I have been loving the advertisement on the TV lately, for those cute little Stork Easter Nest Cup Cakes, or Fairy Cakes as I call them; it’s a fabulous recipe that works on so many levels – they appear to be very easy to make, they look very “Easter-ish”, the cakes have that GREAT chocolate crispy thing on top – you know the ones you used to make when you were little – and, the cakes have mini chocolate eggs on top, so it is a win, win, win recipe all around. So, when I was contacted by Stork and asked to have a go at making them this weekend, I replied with some alacrity.

First assemble your ingredients, which are very simple – just flour, sugar, Stork and eggs for the cakes; although I did add some vanilla extract and milk to my cake mixture. The original recipe says to use 12 x muffin cases, but if you make these cup cakes as muffins, you will only get 6, so you can either have 6 large cakes or 12 daintier cakes, I made 6 large cakes! The chocolate nest topping is made from drinking chocolate, Stork, golden syrup and cornflakes, but again, I tweaked and added some milk chocolate chips. The cakes are baked in 20 minutes and as soon as they have cooled, you add the nests whilst the mixture is hot, which adheres to the top of the cup cakes – which is very clever, so no sliding nests. Pop your mini eggs in and you are ready to scoff these wee treats.

From start to finish, including cooling time outside, my Easter Nest Cakes were on the table in just under an hour. These cakes are just as pretty as they appear in the telly and I can see all sorts of flavour variations, such as: chocolate orange, salted caramel, vanilla and white chocolate, lemon and poppy-seed and triple chocolate with chocolate cakes, chocolate chips and the chocolate nest on top. I am a butter user, mainly, but without getting into any disputes, I was raised on Stork, and my mum still uses it in some of her baking, as do I, and it is especially good in cakes as it makes them so light and fluffy. These cakes certainly came out light and fluffy and my added vanilla extract added an aromatic flavour to the cakes.

There’s still time to whip up a batch of these pretty little Easter cakes, and I am making some more for Easter Sunday, albeit in smaller cake cases for a more elegant tea time treat. The original recipe is here………

Easter Nest Cupcakes

…….and, my slightly adapted recipes is shared below. For more Easter recipe ideas why jot pop over to see my Easter round-up post here: Easter Weekend Treats, Chocolate, Recipes and Champagne, there’s all sorts of recipes from cakes and buns to salmon and lamb there, and all of them tested in the Lavender and Lovage kitchen. Have a WONDERFUL Easter weekend, and see you later with some more recipes and tales from my recent cruise. Karen

Disclaimer: Commissioned work for Stork; all views and opinions are my own and are not representative of Stork or any third parties associated with Stork.