Cadbury's Creme Egg Cupcakes

 

There are a lot of posts to get done this week.  So far, I've got four to do including this one but since I've been asked to make something for Easter lunch on Sunday there'll be five in total.  Best get a move on.

I shall start the updates with the usual Monday cupcake bake for the fiancé to take with him when he goes to Dundee.  As has been the case over the last few weeks, I once again had not given much thought to what I wanted to make until the night before.  Since Easter is coming up I wanted to do something along that theme as next week there are no cupcakes to take since the fiancé is going there straight from work.  I found my inspiration on Pinterest.  Completely by accident mind as I wasn't even browsing the Food category.  Creme Egg cupcakes!  However, the recipe linked used actual Creme Egg filling in the icing.  Well, you know me: I like making everything from scratch.  So off I went in search of a copy-cat recipe for the fondant, which I eventually found on Sticky Pinny.  In fact, she had an entire Creme Egg cupcake recipe right there which looked very cool.  The overall appearance of them was awesome.  I didn't want to do it like that though.  I wanted to put my fondant inside a chocolate cake, not on top, so it would be like an actual Creme Egg.  I also steer clear from cream cheese frostings, since the fiancé hates cheese (though I will tackle them one of these days), and I preferred to try and make the cake taste as much like Cadbury Dairy Milk as I possibly could and so didn't want to use the Devil's Food Cake base either.  

Hence I went searching for a different cupcake recipe to use as a base.  My main requirement was that it used actual chocolate in the recipe, not cocoa powder.  I then had a brainwave!  If I could find a recipe that also used a good amount of milk, I could put the Cadbury's drinking chocolate powder in it and make milk chocolate milk!  With those two conditions in mind I did eventually find one that I liked the look of.  I found it on GoodToKnow, but it comes from the Primrose Bakery.

The final thing to decide on was the topping but eventually I settled on milk chocolate buttercream, also flavoured with Dairy Milk.  So from the outside it just looks like a chocolate cake but then you bite into it and find the gooey egg centre.

They were quite the success indeed!  My tasters said they tasted just like Creme Eggs but in cake form.  The cake and buttercream tasted like Dairy Milk and the filling like Creme Egg filling.  However they were quite a heavy cake and the fiance said the buttercream is so indulgent that they could only manage to eat one each.  I personally did not think the filling tasted like Creme Eggs.  It was almost too sweet and I could taste the golden syrup in it.  But that's just me apparently.

Recipe - makes 15

Cakes - recipe adapted from the Primrose Bakery via GoodToKnow:

• 250ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 x 11g packet Cadbury's Highlights Chocolate Instant
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 115g/4oz Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate
• 85g/3oz unsalted butter
• 175g/6oz dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 185g/6.5oz plain flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line 15 holes of muffin tins with muffin cases.
2. Put the milk in a jug and stir in the packet of Cadbury Highlights until it dissolves.  
3. Stir the vanilla into the milk and then set aside.
4. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water.  Leave to cool slightly.
5. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until it is pale and creamy.
6. Separate the eggs, putting the yolks and whites into different bowls.
7. Beat the yolks for a few minutes and then add to the sugar butter a little at a time, beating in after each addition.
8. Stir in the melted chocolate.
9. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together into a bowl.
10. Add the flour mix to the cake batter, alternating it with the milk and stirring in after each addition.  
11. Whisk the egg whites into soft peaks and then slowly fold into the cake mixture.  Keep folding until you see no bits of white.  The resulting mixture will be runny but smooth.
12. Fill the cases three quarters full with the mixture and then bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and tops are springy. 
13. Leave in the tins for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Fondant Filling - adapted from Sticky Pinny:

• 170g/6oz golden syrup
• 60g/2oz butter
• 375g/13oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp water
• Yellow/orange and white food colouring gel/powder

1. Beat the golden syrup, butter and icing sugar together in a bowl with an electric whisk until smooth.
2. Add in the vanilla extract, salt and water and mi until well incorporated.
3. Transfer a third of the mixture to a different bowl and colour with the yellow/orange food colouring to it.
4. Use the white colouring on the remaining two thirds.  You don't need to make it completely white, just noticeably paler than the yellow.

Buttercream:

• 175g/6oz butter
• 340g/12oz icing sugar
• 150g/5.3oz milk chocolate
• 1 tbsp milk

1. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl placed over a saucepan of gently simmering water.
2. Beat the butter until it is really creamy.
3. Sift in the icing sugar, add the milk and beat until smooth.
4. Pour in the chocolate and beat until evenly distributed through the mix.

Assembly:

1. Use a knife and cut a core out of the middle of each cupcake.
2. Put a small amount of yellow fondant into the hole you have made then fill in the rest with white fondant.
3. Replace the core.
4. Put the buttercream in a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe a swirl on top of each cake.  Make sure to cover the entire top and mask the seams of the core and any filling that may have escaped.