Playful yummy bakes for modern home bakers
Easter is the time for celebration, togetherness and of course many many delicious Easter desserts. If you’re looking for some cracking ideas, you’ve come to the right place. From mini eggs Easter cakes, Easter nests, carrot cake cupcakes, blueberry lemon drizzle bars, hot cross buns …
Easter is the time for celebration, togetherness and of course chocolate. Mini eggs for me are the Queen of Easter chocolates. I know I’m not alone in this but I get so excited the first time I spot them on the shelves after Christmas. Delicious, …
Easter is most definitely the time to indulge in chocolate but if you want a fast no bake sweet treat this is the one for you. Mini eggs really are Easter to me. I get so excited spotting them in the shops for the first time each year.
This cheats fudge is so easy. A few ingredients, a little colour and a lot of mini eggs and you’ve got something pretty special to share around. They’d make fab homemade gifts too.
This easy-peasy cheats fudge needs no need for sugar thermometers, which really takes the stress out of things, particularly if you’re getting a few treats ready for a party. A recipe that you stir together on the hob and then pop in the fridge is such a go to for me.
450g white chocolate
1 tin condensed milk (I always use Carnation for this)
2 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch salt
Food colouring (I used purple, pink and yellow for this recipe)
2x 80g bags mini eggs
Makes approx 15 squares of fudge
Line a 2lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper and leave to one side while you make the fudge
Carefully chop the mini eggs into shards to add to your fudge later.
Chop the chocolate into small pieces and pop into a saucepan. Pour over the condensed milk and add the vanilla extract and salt.
Over a low heat, gradually combine the ingredients until the chocolate has completely melted and the fudge has thickened. Keep stirring all the time with this one, white chocolate can be tricky to work with and you don’t want it to catch and burn on the bottom.
When the mixture is ready, turn off the heat and spoon in large dollops of the mix into three small bowls, ready to add the food colouring. You’re after about a 50/50 split, leaving half the remaining mixture plain to swirl in with the colours.
Add a few drops of gel food colouring and mix to create your purple, pink and yellow. I often use Pro Gel food colouring for this type of thing. Gels work well because they give you a vibrant colour without adding lots of liquid to your sweets.
In the lined loaf tin, spoon on the different coloured fudge, alternating so that there will be a good colour contrast when you cut the fudge. Put half of the plain and coloured fudge mixes into the tin and gently swirl with a toothpick or skewer. Then add in half of the mini eggs, so you will have pieces all throughout the fudge.
Add the remaining mix. Then ripple again and add the remaining mini eggs to the top, pressing down lightly.
The mini eggs chocolate fudge will take a few hours to set in the fridge and then it will be ready to cut into squares.
Once cut, the fudge is best stored in an airtight container in a cool dry place and will last about a week. It can be stored in the fridge, but you may find that the edges of the fudge dry out a little over time.
Looking for more Easter ideas? Try our Giant mini eggs pop tart, Mini eggs Easter cake, Mini eggs Easter cake or Easter hot chocolate
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I love making homemade chocolates. They’re great as gifts and brilliant if you’re having people over because you can make them ahead of time but fudge making can be tricky. This recipe for chocolate coconut raspberry fudge is luckily a cheats alternative. No sugar thermometers …
A giant mini eggs pop tart, now this says treat day Easter breakfast to me! So yummy and a completely indulgent, over the top fun brunch treat to celebrate the season. If there was every an occasion for chocolate for breakfast it’s Easter. In my book you can’t have Easter without mini eggs or a truck load of chocolate so this is basically my dream way to start the day.
Vanilla pastry, loaded with nutella, topped with chocolate icing, mini eggs and white chocolate drizzle. A total chocoholic dream. The pastries keep really well in an airtight container and I mean you can make individual pop tarts but a giant one, says party to me.
Give it a go and let me know what you think.
345g plain flour
2 large eggs
175g unsalted butter (fridge cold)
25g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
250g nutella
175g icing sugar
1 tbsp nutella
3 tbsp water from recently boiled kettle
Pinch of salt
1 ½ tbsp cocoa powder
½ tsp instant coffee powder
80g mini eggs
25g white chocolate
This makes 1 giant mini eggs pop tart, cut into 8 portions.
First, let’s make the pastry.
This is really simple. Pop the flour, salt, cold butter and icing sugar in a food processor. Blitz for a few seconds until you have a mixture that looks like fine breadcrumbs. The butter should be in very small pieces, distributed amongst the flour mix.
Then crack in 2 eggs and add in the vanilla extract. Blitz until the pastry begins to come together in one large ball.
Remove the dough, divide into 2 equal balls. Then wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about 30 mins.
Preheat the oven to 190°C alongside a baking tray the same size that you’ll use to bake the giant mini egg pop tart. This will help them cook evenly and give you a lovely crispy base.
Take each piece of dough then on a floured work surface, thinly roll out the pastry into a large rectangle. I did 21 by 28 cm but roughly that size is fine. Trim the pastry so that you have pretty straight edges. Take the bottom piece and pop onto a lined baking tray.
Do the same for the other piece of dough. I aimed for the pastry top to be a little larger than the bottom so that it will help with the crimping.
You’ll probably have extra pastry, so you can always make yourself a chocolate poptart with the leftovers. The cook’s perk.
Heat the nutella up a little in the microwave to loosen it and make it easier to spread. Pour it onto the bottom of the pop tart and spread evenly across, leaving a few cm border, so that the nutella doesn’t come out when you add the pastry lid.
Get a mug of water and, using your finger, wet the sides of the pastry. Then take the pastry lid and place on top, pressing down the sides to make sure no nutella escapes.
Take a fork, and seal the edges of the pastry. Take a sharp knife and add score marks in the centre of the pastry, to help any steam escape in the oven.
Brush the top of the tart with milk or egg wash then bake. The lovely thing about this recipe is you can do all this the night before then bake them fresh in the morning if you like. They’ll sit very happily in the fridge.
Bake for about 20 minutes with the pop tart covered with a piece of greased tin foil. This will help the bottom cook through before the top browns too much. After this time, remove the foil and cook uncovered for another 15 minutes until the pop tart is cooked well underneath and is a lovely golden brown.
Once cooked, leave to completely cool on the baking tray. It is really important to make sure it is completely cold before you move it and ice it, otherwise the pastry will crack when you try to move it. (I did this the first time and trust me even warm pastry is too delicate and you don’t want to ruin all the effort you put in, just for it to break apart when it’s all baked).
To make the icing, put the icing sugar, cocoa powder, nutella, salt and coffee powder into a bowl then gradually add the hot water until you get a pouring but not too runny consistency. Stir together. Add the water gradually a tbsp at a time to help get the right consistency but if it does get a bit too runny, you can just add more icing sugar.
Spread the icing on top, letting it fall down the sides a bit as it sets. Roughly chop the mini eggs and sprinkle over alongside the melted white chocolate in any pattern you fancy.
Leave for about 30 minutes for the icing to set a little. Enjoy.
These are best eaten on the day that they’re baked, but will last a few days stored in an airtight container.
You could also freeze un-iced pastries by tightly wrapping in cling film, which will keep for about 3 months. Then you could defrost in the fridge overnight and decorate when needed. Alternatively you can flash freeze unbaked pastries, store in a bag and then bake for an extra 10 minutes whenever you want one.
Looking for other chocolate recipes? Try our Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts, Easter hot chocolate, Ruby chocolate rocky road
Love mini eggs and want more ideas for how to make fun desserts with them? Try our Mini egg ice-cream or Easter Nest Doughnuts
Easter is definitely the time for indulgence and that of course means chocolate. Chocolate on top of chocolate. This hot chocolate is as yummy as it is simple to make. A mixture of milk and dark chocolate makes this extra yummy and then you can …
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Triple chocolate raspberry truffles. My goodness, these are so special. As beautiful as they are delicious. This is a cheeky recipe you’ll want to make time and time again. Excellent for homemade chocolate gifts and gorgeous for special occasions like Valentines, Anniversaries or Birthdays.
Who wouldn’t like a recipe that used three different types of chocolate. We don’t play favourites here. 🙂 White chocolate base mixed with zingy raspberries. Coat in dark chocolate and drizzle with ruby chocolate. The chocolate trinity.
Making truffles is so much fun, and completely delicious. Once you’ve mastered them you can do so many flavours and combinations. Even though making ganache is easy there is a trick to it to avoid the base from splitting; which has happened to me a few times. The best piece of advice is to be patient and keep everything on a nice gentle heat and you’ll be absolutely fine.
250g white chocolate (I use everyday white chocolate here like Milky bar, it is inexpensive and melts really well)
110ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch salt
20g freeze dried raspberries (plus extra to drizzle on at the end)
200g dark chocolate (this is for the coating, so Lindt works really well here)
65g Ruby Chocolate (Callebaut chocolate buttons are fab)
Makes 21 truffles
Finely chop the white chocolate so that it’ll melt quickly when making the ganache.
In a large bowl pour in the double cream, vanilla extract and salt. Then add in the chocolate shards and stir briefly.
In a small saucepan, start to heat a small amount of water which will be used to melt the chocolate. Once the water begins to simmer, put the large pyrex, heatproof bowl, on top of it and melt the ingredients together. This is such a simple way to make a ganache, which is what truffles are essentially.
Every so often stir the mixture. These are very easy to make but chocolate can be quite fiddly, particularly when making ganache so my advice is to keep the heat as gentle as possible, turning down the heat for the water if it is bubbling too much to help get a beautiful ganache. The water should be hot enough to melt the chocolate and combine everything together but not too hot which can make the ganache split, so a little patience goes a long way here. If the mix does split, and you’ll know if it has because the chocolate will look grainy, just stir in a little more double cream and the mix should smooth out again. No problems.
It should take about 5-10 minutes to make the ganache.
When the chocolate is all melted and you have a smooth mix, take the bowl off the heat. Add in the crushed freeze dried raspberries and stir to combine. I like to crush them in a pestle and mortar, but a rolling pin in a bowl will work just as well.
Directly cover the surface with cling film to avoid a skin forming.
Once the ganache has chilled, take it out of the fridge and start spooning out small amounts to roll into truffles. If you want to weigh them, I’d aim for 16g each but you don’t have to weigh them if you don’t feel like it.
Once you’ve portioned out the ganache, quickly roll it in the palms of your hands to make a ball.
When you have rolled out all the truffles, chill again in the fridge for a few hours (or overnight) so they firm up enough to coat in chocolate. It’s better to give them time to set so that they are nice and firm when you come to coat them in dark chocolate.
Finely chop the dark chocolate. (I’d recommend dividing the chocolate into two batches to coat the truffles because if you melt all at once it will likely firm up too much before you have coated all the truffles, and you want the chocolate to be silky smooth when it coats the truffles for the best finish.)
With the half of the chocolate you are working with, put about ⅔ into a heat proof bowl. Melt the chocolate gradually in the microwave in about 30 sec bursts. Stirring it occasionally to ensure that the chocolate is melting evenly and not getting too hot (this can make the chocolate go grainy).
Once the chocolate has melted add in the final ⅓ and stir quickly until it has all melted (popping it back in the microwave briefly if it needs help completely melting). This is a cheat’s way to temper the chocolate for the coating which works well and means you don’t need to invest in a sugar thermometer.
With a small spoon and fork, take a truffle one by one, and coat it in a layer of chocolate, patting the fork against the bowl to tap away any excess chocolate before placing onto a plate lined with greaseproof paper.
Once the chocolate is all melted, pour it into a small piping bag and drizzle chocolate over the top with a light sprinkle of freeze dried raspberries while they’re still wet. (If you don’t have a piping bag then just use a small spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the truffles).
Then, repeat for the remaining truffles until they are all coated and decorated.
Pop the truffles in the fridge. They’ll last for 1-2 weeks in the fridge very well. Enoy!
Looking for other tasty truffle recipes. Try our Salted caramel chocolate truffles or our Ruby chocolate valentines truffles, so yummy.
No bake recipes make me so very happy. There’s something about the simplicity of tinkering around the kitchen, prepping a few store bought ingredients and after a few hours being rewarded with something completely delicious. This ruby chocolate rocky road gives you all of this …