The Easter holidays are upon us, so there's plenty of time to whip up a little Easter magic with your budding junior chefs. Here at Newbie we wanted to share a few of our favourite Easter recipes:
Meringue nest cheesecake with mini eggs
Ingredients:
- 100 g butter plus extra for greasing
- 14 chocolate digestives
- 397 g can condensed milk
- juice 2 lemons
- 280 g cream cheese
- For the decoration
- 25 g toasted coconut flakes or white chocolate curls
- 3 meringues nests
- 9 mini eggs
- hundreds and thousands
Method:
- Grease a 18 cm loose bottomed round cake tin with a little butter and line with a circle of baking paper. Melt the butter in a large heatproof bowl in the microwave or in a medium-sized pan over a low heat. Crumble the chocolate digestives in a food processor until reduced to fine crumbs then tip into the melted butter. Spoon the biscuit mixture into the base of the prepared tin – press down well with the back of a spoon.
- In a large mixing bowl whisk together the rest of the cheesecake ingredients then pour into the tin. Smooth the top with a spatula then place in the fridge for at least 2 hrs or overnight.
- When you’re ready to serve carefully transfer the cheesecake to a serving plate or cake stand and sprinkle the top with coconut flakes – making a bigger mound in the centre then arrange the meringue nests on top. Fill the nests with mini eggs, extra sprinkling of coconut, hundreds & thousands and the fluffy chicks.
Bunny Cupcakes
Ingredients:
- 185 g self-raising flour
- 120 g golden caster sugar
- 120 g butter, softened
- 100 g pot natural yogurt
- 1 lemon zest
- 2 eggs
- 250 g pack fondant icing
- for the frosting
- 85 g unsalted butter, softened
- few drops vanilla extract
- 200 g icing sugar
- few drops green food colouring
Method:
- Heat oven to 190 C/170 fan/gas 5 and line a 12-hole bun tin with paper cases. Put the flour, sugar, butter, yogurt, lemon zest and eggs in a bowl and mix with electric beaters until smooth. Spoon a large tablespoon of the mixture into each of the cases, making them as even as possible. Bake for 20-25 mins until the cakes are risen and golden, and a skewer poked into the centre of one comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a wire rack.
- For the frosting, beat the butter, vanilla extract and icing sugar until the mixture is pale and creamy, and completely combined. Add a few drops of green colouring and beat it in. If piping, scoop the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, then pipe stars of green icing all over the tops of the cakes like tufts of grass. If not piping, spread the icing over the cakes and run a fork across to make it resemble grass.
- Roll the fondant icing into small balls no bigger than a walnut (these are the bunnies’ bottoms). Roll smaller balls to make tails and stick them on top of the bigger balls. Put one rabbit on each cake. Now make the feet by rolling two more small balls for each bunny and shape them into ovals. Rest these at one end of the ball so they look like feet.
Easter Brownie Bites
Ingredients:
- 175 g butter, chopped
- 150 g dark chocolate
- 250 g light brown soft sugar
- 85 g self-raising flour
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 100 g milk chocolate chips
- 24 mini chocolate eggs, plus extra to decorate
Method:
- Heat oven to 180 C/160 C fan/gas 4. Line 24 holes of a mini muffin tray with paper cases. Put the butter, dark chocolate and sugar in a pan and heat it very gently, stirring all the time until the butter and chocolate have melted. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for a few mins.
- Meanwhile, sift the flour, cocoa and a good pinch of salt into a large bowl. Stir in the warm, melted chocolate mixture and the beaten eggs, then add half the chocolate chips and mix until just combined.
- Divide the mixture between the cases and place a mini egg into the middle of each muffin, pushing down gently. Bake for 12-15 mins until cooked but still gooey in the centre – they will continue cooking a little as they cool down. Leave to cool for 10 mins in the tin before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Melt the rest of the chocolate chips in short bursts in the microwave, or in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring frequently. Leave to cool until it is quite thick, then dot a small amount on each cake and stick on some more mini eggs.
