Easter Oreo Chicks

These Easter Oreo Chicks are so simple to make and look super cute. No baking required, they are the perfect treat to make with children or when you're short of ingredients and only have the basics at hand.

Scroll to the bottom for the recipe. 

I've been a bit behind on my blogging - in fact, I've been completely absent from the online world since Tuesday, enjoying a mini break. On Wednesday I spent a fantastic day at the beach with a really good friend which ended in copious amounts of white wine, lots of girly giggling and a very sunburnt face.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent high up a mountain in a pine forest on a camping trip. The weather took a turn for the worst and was really unusual for this time of year - it rained almost the whole time we were there and the temperature was so cold I ended up wearing all the clothes I'd taken for the three days, plus everything I could steal from my Official Treat Taster resulting in wearing about seven layers of clothing.

Fortunately, we'd taken packets upon packets of marshmallows - along with a couple of bottles of sangria - with us so we spent a good few hours just sat by the BBQ toasting and somewhat burning them.

When we were out exploring a corner of the island we'd never visited, I stumbled upon a shop that had a set of adorable mini Easter cookie cutters and I snapped them up. But that's enough of my rambling - back to the Easter Oreo Chicks!

Ingredients

Mini Oreos

White chocolate

Yellow food colouring

Icing pens

Recipe

1. Melt the white chocolate in 25-second intervals in the microwave.

2. Gradually add drops of yellow food colouring to the white chocolate until you get the Easter-chick-yellow you're looking for.

3. Dip each mini Oreo into the white chocolate and leave to one side to set. If one coating of chocolate isn't enough to fully cover the Oreos, re-dip them once the first layer has set.

4. Draw eyes, a beak, two wings and two little feet on each of the Easter Oreo Chicks.

But wait - there's more!

When I was away, I got so many kind comments - thanks to all of you - and also received a couple awards and features!

Kit from I-Lost in Austen kindly presented me with the Liebster Award and Amy from One Artsy Mama featured me in her Top Ten Thursday. 

Thanks so much to both of you.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Here are the link parties I take part in.
Come and join the fun!

  

   

Hot Cross Bunnies

These Hot Cross Bunnies are a fun take on the traditional Hot Cross Bun baking during Easter. Packed with juicy raisins and lacking the rather odd-tasting paste cross, this recipe is more picky-palate friendly and is sure to put a smile on almost anyone’s face.

The original recipe didn’t require any kneading, but most comments were complaining about how heavy the buns were. I tried to counteract this by kneading the dough for 5 minutes, which worked a treat. The recipe I adapted is for Easy Hot Cross Buns because they take less than 2 hours in total to make, compared to the more common 4-5 hour recipes. Although they were perfectly yummy, I did find that the outside of the bunnies were quiet hard and not really soft bun-like. 

Hot Crossed Bunnies are wonderful lightly toasted and smeared with butter and strawberry jam for breakfast, lunch or even dinner! 

This recipe makes 6 Hot Cross Bunnies

Hot Cross Bunnies

Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

250g plain flour

1/4tsp salt

1tsp mixed spice

25g sugar

25g butter

100g raisins

5g yeast

100ml milk

1 egg

Recipe

1. Combine the flour, salt, mixed spice and sugar.

2. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then stir in the raisins and yeast.

3. Warm the milk in a saucepan or the microwave until it is about a pleasant bath temperature and beat the egg into it. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and leave to soak for about 5 minutes.

4. Either by hand or with an electric mixer with dough hooks attached, knead the dough for 5-7 minutes.

5. Divide the dough into 6 pieces and shape them into bunnies. I did this by rolling each piece of dough into a long sausage shape, starting at one end and rolling a spiral until I’d used half of the dough, then bending the remaining dough into two ears. This sounds quite complicated and my results were far from fantastic, so maybe you can find a better method online. Or you could always stop at the sausage stage and make Easter snakes!

6. Leave your dough bunnies to rise on a covered baking sheet for at least an hour.

7. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F and bake for around 15 minutes until golden brown. 

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Chocolate Easter Nests

These Chocolate Easter Nests are perfect for baking with children. They only require a few basic ingredients and don’t need any complicated cooking skills to turn out fantastic.

The recipe below makes enough for 6 Easter nests, but the ingredients can easily be adapted to make as many as you like.

 I’ve seen various recipes for Chocolate Easter Nests which use noodles, but this recipe calls for All-Bran cereal. I know some people aren't keen on the flavour of this cereal, but you won’t notice it at all once it’s coated in thick milk chocolate!

Chocolate Easter Nests

Ingredients

200g milk chocolate

20g butter

60g All-Bran cereal

18 small chocolate eggs

Recipe

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave or in a saucepan over a low heat. Stir frequently to avoid burning.

2. Pour the cereal into the chocolate and stir well until all the sticks are well-coated.

3. Shape into 6 nests with a spoon and create a little well in the middle of each nest.

4. Place 3 small chocolate eggs in the centre of each nest and leave in the fridge for at least 1 hour to set.

Here are the link parties I take part in.
Come and join the fun!

  

   

Egg-Shaped Brownies

When I stumbled across this recipe for Egg-Shaped Brownies I just had to give it a try. I’ve seen so many cute Easter recipes that I want to make but can’t because most require adorable lamb, chick or bunny cutters that I just can’t get my hands on. These Egg-Shaped Brownies only required egg shells to look festive – something which my fridge was full of!

Now, I’m not going to lie – this recipe does take quite a bit of time and effort but who wouldn’t love to be presented with a brownie baked inside an egg shell? Like Liz, I didn’t go the whole haul and make 12-16 egg-shaped brownies. In fact, I only made 3 baked in egg shells – the rest I poured into small silicone moulds and made brownie bites.

Be really careful not to over-bake your brownies! After 20 minutes, I removed mine from the oven but thought they were far too gooey and put them back for another 10 minutes. Mistake! I was left with something more akin to chocolate sponge than soft gooey brownies.

Egg-Shaped Brownies

Makes 12-16 brownies

Recipe from Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake – you should really check out her blog. It’s packed with great recipes!

Ingredients

200g (7oz) chocolate

110g (1/2 cup) butter, cubed

3 eggs

200g (just less than 1 cup) sugar

1tsp vanilla

Pinch of salt

120g (1 cup) flour

3tbsp cocoa powder

12-16 empty egg shells

Recipe

Preparing the egg shells

1. Use something fine and sharp – I used a needle – to poke a hole in the top of the egg shell. Carefully open up the hole so it is large enough to insert the tip of a piping bag. Break up the yolk with a wooden skewer then shake the contents of the egg into a bowl – collect 3 eggs to use in the recipe.

2. When the egg shells are empty, rise well and soak them in salt water for 30 minutes. Rinse them well and leave them upside down to drain.

3. When dry, drop a small amount of oil into each egg shell and swirl around to coat the inside of the shell. Turn upside down to drain any excess.

Now onto the brownies!

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/350F and melt the chocolate and butter together in a saucepan over a medium-low heat, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Leave to cool to room temperature.

2. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla before adding the chocolate and stirring well.

Carefully add the flour, salt and cocoa powder and mix until just combined.

3. Place the egg shells in tiny silicone cupcake moulds or if you don’t have any, make little nests out of foil, place them in a muffin tin and sit the egg shells on top. Using a piping bag, fill the egg shells ¾ full with batter and clean any spills with a damp cloth.

4. Bake for around 15-20 minutes. If there is any overflow when the brownies are removed from the oven, wipe with a damp cloth whilst they are still warm. Remove the top of the shell to serve.



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Easter Eggstravaganza Popcorn

I’ve seen quite a few popcorn recipes popping up recently and thought I’d try and create my own recipe for Easter. The contrast between the crunchy corn, the soft marshmallows – or bunny tails, if you will – and chocolate eggs in this Easter Eggstravaganza Popcorn is fantastic and the colours really brighten up an otherwise dull snack.

I’ve never popped my own kernels before and I was so surprised at how easy and mess-free it is when using a microwave! This recipe is a great chance to be creative – you can use any Easter-themed candy you like as long as it’s small enough. I didn’t have mini-marshmallows, so I cut up regular marshmallows and they worked fine – possibly even better and the sticky sides helped hold the popcorn together.

Easter Eggstravaganza Popcorn

Ingredients

¼ cup popcorn kernels

100g white chocolate

Mini-marshmallows

Selection of mini eggs (I used Smarties Eggs, Mini Eggs, and Milky Bar Eggs)

Sprinkles

Recipe

1. Pop your popcorn kernels using your usual method. I used this easy method for popping them in the microwave.

2. Melt the white chocolate in the microwave. Remove the chocolate every 20 seconds and stir well – white chocolate burns really easily!

3. Combine the white chocolate and popcorn in a bowl. Mix really well so the popcorn is completely coated.

4. Pour in as many mini-marshmallows, mini eggs, and sprinkles as you like – you can never have too many!

5. Spread the popcorn onto a sheet of grease-proof or parchment paper and leave for about 20 minutes in the fridge to set.



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Lucky Four Leaf Clover Jello

When I saw this recipe for St Patrick’s Day Ice Cream Jello I knew I had to give it a try. I didn’t have any ice cream on hand so I decided to whip up a basic vanilla gelato and use that instead. Because gelato is thinner than ice cream – it uses milk instead of double cream – my jello didn’t have the wonderful layers that the Food Librarian’s did.

Jello is so versatile and easy to play around with - I can't believe I never tried incorporating it in any recipes before.

I didn’t have any St Patrick’s Day moulds, so I improvised  –  I used my heart ice cube/chocolate mould to make shamrock shapes! This is my final St Patrick’s Day recipe for this year – sniff sniff – but I hope you all have a great time this Saturday, I know I will!

Lucky Four-Leaf Clover Jello inspired by Food Librarian 

Ingredients

1 pack green jello

1tbsp gelatine

250ml vanilla ice cream or gelato

Recipe

1. Follow the recipe on the back of the packet to make your jello, but make sure you only add half of the water recommended.

2. Pour in the gelatine into the jello mix and heat in a saucepan over a medium heat until dissolved.

3. Add the vanilla ice cream or gelato to the saucepan and stir until melted.

4. Pour into moulds and refrigerate for at least 24 hours to allow it to set



Here are the link parties I take part in.
Come and join the fun!