So, in the midst of this chaos, here’s some normality. 4 simple treats to make at home to celebrate Easter. There’s nothing fancy required or ingredient you need to brave the shops for. You won’t be elbowing Hugo or Biffy in the wholefoods shop for the last Madagascan Dodo Bird Feather to make these. Just your normal baking supplies. I really hope some of you can create these and find some escape in these recipes. Baking, for me, can be really therapeutic and, if that fails, you can always stress eat your bakes. Whichever way, I hope this helps.
1. Easter Bunny Sugar Cookies
These are great to make with little ones because you can make the dough ahead of time and they’re really simple and quick. If you don’t have any Easter cookie cutters because ever other Mum in the country has bought them, then this is for you!
What you will need:
- A batch of sugar cookie dough (see my recipe here).
- Rolling pin
- Gingerbread man cookie cutter
- Chocolate eggs with a sugar crisp shell
Method
- Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1 cm thickness.
- Cut out your ‘gingerbread men’.
- Place cookies on a lined baking tray upside down. The ‘legs’ will be the bunny’s ears.
- Place a chocolate egg in the centre and bend the arms over the egg so it looks like the bunny is cuddling the egg.
- Using a cocktail stick, give the bunny some eyes.
- Bake in a preheated (160ºC fan) oven for 10 minutes.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Once cool add a nose with a blob of chocolate or a sprinkle.
2. Easter Nest Cupcakes
Everyone knows how to make the traditional chocolate Easter nests. Well, they inspired me to make these in cupcake form with a difference.
What you will need:
- A batch of 12 cupcakes (I used my vanilla cupcakes but you could make chocolate ones to make these treats even more chocolatey)
- A batch of chocolate buttercream (bought or homemade)
- Chocolate sprinkles
- Mini chocolate eggs
Method
- Fill a piping bag, fitted with a round piping nozzle, with chocolate buttercream (if you don’t have a nozzle, just cut the end off to size).
- Pipe two rings (one on top of the other) of buttercream onto the top of the cupcake.
- Dip your cupcake (gently) into a shallow dish of chocolate sprinkles until the buttercream is coated in them. It should look like a sprinkle covered doughnut!
- Place two mini chocolate eggs in the centre of your nest.
3. Lemon Shortbread Bunnies
These are just so delish! Again, these are so simple and great to make with kids. Get creative! Pick your favourite sprinkles and unapologetically decorate!
What you will need:
- 125g butter (room temp)
- 180g plain flour
- 1 tsp lemon zest (I put in more because I love the lemon flavour)
- 65g caster sugar
- Bunny cookie cutter
- Small flower cookie cutter (optional)
- Icing sugar
- Your favourite sprinkles
Method
- Preheat oven to 150ºC.
- Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Then add the lemon zest.
- Sift in the flour and combine. Using your hands, form into a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Remove from the fridge and roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 5mm thickness.
- Cut out your bunny shapes and place on a lined baking tray. You could also cut out some small flower shapes for the tail! If you don’t have a flower cutter, don’t worry! Continue reading!
- Place the baking tray of cookies into the fridge for 10-15 minutes. You could also put a large hole in the top of them if you with to put ribbon through them to hang.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies have a golden tinge.
- Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
- Mix together icing sugar and water to make a simple icing (you could also add lemon juice to give it more lemon flavour).
- Cover the flower shaped cookies in the icing or carefully spoon/pipe the icing onto your bunny to give it a tail. Add your sprinkles to the icing to create a tail made of sprinkles or simply leave it as it is! If you’re creative, you could give him sprinkle ears!
4. Floral Bunny Ear Cupcakes
These are slightly more challenging but I think they’re so cute! I used these reusable cupcake cases that are silicone plant pots which I think were perfect for this design! You can use whatever you like.
What you will need:
- A batch of your favourite cupcakes (or you can use my vanilla cupcake recipe)
- A batch of vanilla buttercream
- Piping bags
- Variety or piping nozzles
- Food colouring
- Candy melts or chocolate
Method
- Melt your candy melts in a piping bag (I used a microwave. Heated for 30 seconds then squeezed the bag to mix the melts. Then heated for another 30 seconds and repeated until I got my desired runny texture). Then snip a small piece of the end of the piping bag off. You can use chocolate, however, it is not as stable.
- On grease proof paper, pipe bunny ear shapes. (I draw my design before hand and placed it underneath the grease proof paper so I could trace it).
- Leave to harden on a flat surface for 24 hours.
- Separate your vanilla buttercream into different bowls and colour. I used yellow, pink and violet as I thought they were nice spring colours.
- Put your buttercreams into separate piping bags with different nozzles.
- Apply a base of green buttercream to look like grass.
- Carefully peel your candy melt bunny ears off of the grease proof paper and delicately push them into the buttercream.
- Pipe a variety of flowers and shapes onto the cupcake. You can always just pipe swirls and dots! Try to pipe them onto the cupcake in a way that supports the ears.
And there you go! Very simple and quick Easter treats. I hope this brings some joy to your household. If you do create these, please share pictures with me! I would love to see them!
Be kind. Stay Safe.
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