Each year, you know its approaching Easter once the Valentines Day products disappear and the Easter eggs and chicks come out. For some reason I have a bizarre liking for these tiny little yellow chicks. I even made a miniature nappy with safety pins for one. A year ago, we had put them in our mini cactus garden but I accidentally watered one and once you get water on these little chicks, they are ruined. I knew my Easter cupcakes had to include these chicks, in memorandum of the one I accidentally killed with water. RIP little chickadee. And don’t worry, these ones will live the life of a free range chick in our cactus garden afterwards.
I saw the basket weave decoration in the Womens Weekly cucpakes book but their recipe is for a fruit cake cupcake. Surely something more chocolatey would be more suitable for Easter? So I used a Double chocolate raspberry cake in place of the fruit cake. The main problem was that my royal icing was not as stiff as theirs. Theirs looks quite different to mine in the picture although I followed it word for word, even making two batches of the stuff. Perhaps they used meringue powder or something like that to get their icing rock hard.
Now for the technical bits and picking the recipe apart. Their recipe says to pipe directly onto the cake but when I did, this odd white bloom formed between the cake and the icing the next day after I left it to dry overnight. So luckily I had piped the basket weave onto the cupcake paper for some of them and that seemed fine-although eating the icing off the paper doesn’t make for good eating. Also I wasn’t able to pipe onto the cupcake all at once, I had to do it in two batches - one half and then the other half, as my royal icing was not that firm so I didn’t want them to sit upright as the effects of gravity on setting icing are obvious. So put plenty of time aside for this-2 days to be certain that the icing dries.
I’d also recommend using the a straight edge cupcake paper pan as you will want to pipe upwards and it makes it easier. Of course its up to you but I did use one of the brown paper ones that you can get at stores. It did mean that since they are larger, I got half the amount of cupcakes though so be sure to adjust for numbers. There’s nothing worse than a kid missing out on a cupcake-or an adult for that matter.
Easter Basket cupcakes
Double chocolate raspberry cake
- 60g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
- 1/2 cup (125ml) water
- 90g butter softened
- 1 cup (220g) firmly packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup (100g self raising flour
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup (40g) almond meal
- 100g frozen raspberries
Royal icing
- 500g pure icing sugar
- 2 egg whites
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- brown food colouring
Decorations
- sugared almonds or mini chocolate eggs
1. Preheat oven to moderately slow 170c/150 fan forced. Assemble cupcake liners on tray and double case them (to ensure that they hold their shape, place one liner within another)
2. Combine chocolate and water in small saucepan, stir over a low heat until smooth
3. Beat butter, sugar and eggs in small bowl with electric mixer until just combined
4. Stir in sifted flour and cocoa, almond meal, then warm chocolate mixture, fold in raspberries. Divide mixture among cases, smooth surface.
5. Bake cupcake about 30 minutes if you’re using the larger ones like I did (smaller ones will take 20 minutes or so)
6. Once cakes are cooled pipe royal icing around cakes in two lots using a basket tip (I used a small star tip as my store had sold out of basket weave tips). Pipe one vertical line from the top of the case to the bottom, followed by short horizontal lines across the long vertical line. The horizontal lines should be a tube-width apart. Pipe the next long vertical line at the end of the previous short horizontal lines. Pipe short horizontal lines into the gaps, between the two vertical lines. Repeat previous steps, continuing the basket weave design until the design meets with the starting point. It will take a long time and I let one half set overnight before doing the other half.
7. Fill baskets with sugared almonds or chocolate eggs.
Royal Icing
Sift icing sugar through very fine sieve. Lightly beat egg white in a small bowl with a clean electric mixer; beat in icing sugar a tablespoon at at time. When icing reaches firm peaks, use wooden spoon to beat in juice and colouring. Cover tightly with plastic wrap.
These are my entry for the Master Baker challenge for March!
And also for the Easter Cake Bake!
24 Comments | Add your own
Those cupcakes are so delightful, love the pastel eggs! And it’s a terrific idea piping onto the case, who wants to eat all that rock hard royal icing anyway. I hope your chicks don’t get drowned this time.
I’d just read this, while doing my usual ‘catch up on the 23 odd food blogs I read’ marathon blog session. Then I came across this post at IMBB: http://asliceofcherrypie.blogspot.com/2008/03/easter-cake-bake-round-2.html
and thought it would be perfect for these cakes. Somehow on the first look, I didn’t notice that these were for the MasterBaker challenge. Ah well, good luck anyway!
these look fabulous…i was also thinking of doing an easter basket because i too just found a site teaching me how to do basket icing…it looks so great when done but i imagine quite a challenge to do!
i love the chick-a-dees…adorable!
Hi Lori-Thanks!
Its lucky I did pipe some onto the case-I only did it as I had misread the instructions. And true the royal icing although looking good doesn’t taste as great, especially in such large quantities!
Hi SilverMoon-Thanks so much for that link! I’ve entered them in that challenge too
Hi airy fairy-Thankyou! It was very challenging-I think it drove me a bit mental trying to get it to set and on top of that it was a hot and humid day!
i was just skimming through your post, glancing at the pictures, and it took me a second to realize that the basket was actually a cupcake! i’m very impressed–nice job!
Double chocolate raspberry cake, wow I want some right now! They look fabulous, fantastic job. Thanks for entering the Easter Cake Bake.
Hi a.grace-Thankyou very much!
Yes I suppose its not obviously a cake which is why I liked it.
Hi Julia-Thanks so much Julia and thanks for organising the event!
They are so cute! They sound tasty too! Thanks for the entry!
Hi Nikki57-Thanks so much!
And thanks again for organising the challenge and for picking such a cool ingredient!
These are just a work of art Lorraine! Well done!!
Seeing that you love these little chicks, have you seen the books by Sloane Tanen? They are pages of little chicks in “assorted diorama’s”.. kind of humorous situations. Eg. from her book “Hatched”, there’s one of those chicks (big, fat belly, with jeans on, in front of the mirror) and the caption says “The first time Maxine tried on a pair of maternity jeans she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Pregnant or not, she was never going back to button fly”. The pages used to be syndicated in a Melbourne newspaper Sunday magazine. She does some kids books too..but there are a few that are for the grown ups like: “Bitter with baggage seeks same” “Going for the bronze, still bitter, more baggage”.
Some of the funny diorama’s can be bought as prints to hang/frame @:
http://www.imagekind.com/GalleryProfile.aspx?GID=0f4bc918-31b5-48e4-a1d5-f4505759914c&P=1
She has her own website:
http://www.sloanetanen.com
And the books can be bought on Amazon and bookstores etc.
Apologies if you are already aware of these cute little chicks!?
Hi Maria-Thankyou!
Ooh yes I love those books-yes the Sunday mags were where I first saw her and I loved them so much I bought the first two “Bitter with Baggage” books for my sister. They’re hilarious. I have also bought the card versions for friends too from Borders. I am crazy for those little chicks so its right up my alley. Thanks for the link so that I can see them again!
And don’t apologise, I love the thoughtful comments!
Somehow I knew you’d know about these chicks.. you’re a “with it”, clever, “in the know” woman!
Hi Maria-I wish it was still printed in the Sunday Magazine, I used to flip to that page first!
I can’t believe that they’re actual cupcakes…aren’t you a star!
Hi Reemski-Thanks so much for your lovely comment! I fell in love with the basket idea as soon as I saw it
Well I don’t know about this not quite Nigella thing, your cakes look pretty good. Very talented and creative you are.
Hi Kim-Thankyou so much! That’s so lovely of you to say
I too love the Womens Weekly books and often cook from them.
Your Easter basket cupcakes are excellent.
Hi Margaret-They are good and reliable indeed (something so important when baking!). Thankyou so much!
Just adorable! Truly a wonderful job
They look so very tasty and appealing. Love the concept of double chocolate raspberry cake with almond meal, sounds amazing!
Hi LisaRene-Thankyou so much!
It’s a very moist cake with the raspberries and almond meal.
We are located in Vermont, USA and absoulutly love your cherry Cupcake liners. If you could let us know where we could purches some that would be great.
thanks in advance,
Eve
Hi Eve-I bought them from ebay, I don’t have the seller’s name on me at the moment as I’m traveling but if you email me after the 24th of July I can look it up
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