Easter bakes

A small collection of bakes to celebrate the occasion… Cupcakes, cookies, bonbons…
Let’s start with cupcakes, shall we?

For the cupcakes, I went with chocolate, and used this recipe which is simple and wonderful. Frosting was a simple American buttercream, but the gilding of the lily was the little nest made with rice noodles broken up in little pieces, coated with melted chocolate and assembled in mini-muffin tins. I have tried other methods to make the nests and this was by far my favorite.

This is really a very very messy process, and there was some colorful language going around The Bewitching Kitchen, I won’t lie to you. But aren’t those nest super cute? Totally worth the trouble. Get the noodles and cut them with scissors in small little pieces. It will make a Royal mess in your kitchen and you will find pieces of noodles in unexpected places. Melt chocolate, coat them well (gloves are mandatory), and while everything is still pliable and warm, stick little portions inside mini muffin tins. Add the eggs and let it all set.

TRI-DIMENSIONAL EASTER EGGS

These are not made of chocolate, the shells are my favorite chocolate cookie (click here for recipe, I omitted the chipotle powder for this version) baked into these cute little molds. Once they are baked, I brushed them with luster powder mixed with vodka, decorated with Royal icing and filled with mini peanut butter eggs.

BUNNY BONBONS

A little labor of love, you’ll need a special mold for these babies, found at one of my favorite stores, Evil Cake Genius. It is a three component mold, so you make the top, let it set, fill with whatever you want (I used lemon brigadeiro), then close the bottom with more chocolate. A very detailed video is available here.

EGG NESTS CHOCOLATE COOKIES

Very little icing on these cookies, I brushed them with Americolor White + a touch of turquoise before baking. Then just added a few details with piping consistency icing, and placed mini eggs on top. They went together nicely with the cupcakes!

THE GOLFING RABBIT

Same cookie, made with the help of AI-generated image, and a mini-projector… Love these goofy fellows!

If you celebrate the date, I wish you a Happy Easter! Hope you have a wonderful day…

ONE YEAR AGO: Bicolor Ravioli

TWO YEARS AGO: Crispy Asparagus Salad with Toasted Bread Crumbs

THREE YEARS AGO: Low-Carb Super Fast Chicken Parmigiana

FOUR YEARS AGO: Sundried Tomato Spelt Sourdough

FIVE YEARS AGO: A Duet of Chocolate Bonbons

SIX YEARS AGO: Chocolate Tartlets with Honey-Caramel Filling

SEVEN YEAR AGO: Zucchini Soup with Tahini

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Black Sesame Macarons

NINE YEARS AGO: Fine Tuning Thomas Keller

TEN YEARS AGO: Cauliflower Tortillas

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Majestic Sedona, Take Two

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Secret Ingredient Turkey Meatballs

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Swedish Meatballs and Egg Noodles

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Italian Easter Pie

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Black Olive Bialy

Sourdough, Chocolate-Covered Oreos and Macarons for you today…

EASTER SOURDOUGH BREAD
(recipe as published here)

For this sourdough boule, I made a decoration using wafer paper and food safe pens, with a little stencil to help me out. Then a bit of scoring with my Sonic blade, and into the oven it went…

I love how the colors stayed during baking, it was my first time using food pens, until now I have relied on colors designed for air-brushing.

HAPPY EASTER CHOCOLATE-COVERED OREOS

I had so much fun with these! First, I made fondant decorations as little Easter eggs, and used a new set of food pens to paint them (they will be featured in my upcoming In My Kitchen post). Then I dyed white compound chocolate with oil-based green food color, and covered the Oreos. Once that set, I used thick Royal icing and a grass tip as the base to glue the eggs on the surface.

This is the full batch, donated on Good Friday…

EASTER EGG LEMON MACARONS
(recipe as published here, filling as published here)

Sometimes a bake goes exactly the way I plan. It is rare, but it happens. These macarons turned out this way. I used a mixture of three colors (yellow, pink and blue), added them to the same piping back to get a tie-dye effect. After baking the details were piped with Royal icing, and in some I added sparkling sugar right away. Most were left plain, and got just a little spray with PME luster for some shine. That step is optional. They look nice without it.

I hate to pick favorites, but I must say of the three bakes I shared today, these macs might very well be the winners for me!

I hope you enjoyed this trilogy of bakes… The macaron design can be used on regular round macarons, piping flower shapes for a springtime version, so keep that in mind. I might just have to re-visit the method soon!