Creme Egg Surprise Easter Cupcake

Creme Egg Surprise Easter Cupcake..YUM!

After a post on my facebook page asking for some challenging ideas for Easter cupcakes, a follower came back to me to do a "Creme egg styled cupcake". I thought about it for a few weeks and after finding mini Creme eggs at the grocery store, I had the base for the idea. I wanted to work out a way to submerge a creme egg into the centre of a rich, moist chocolate cupcake, but have the 'Creme' still visible. The trouble with that is, when baking a soft centred chocolate into the middle of a cupcake, it generally melts into the cake batter in no time, and disappears. So the next question was, how do I prevent the egg from disappearing?

I searched the web for ideas and came by a recipe for a rolo cupcake (which I had tried to do myself before and failed to get the desired outcome.) In this recipe they added frozen rolo's into the centre of the cupcake to bake. Thus slowing down the cooking time of the chocolate, and resulting in the rolo still being in one piece after the baking process. This was the answer I had been searching for, and knew that the 'Creme egg cupcake' I had been dreaming about, was one step closer to being a reality.

For the rich and moist chocolate cake, I decided on a Devil's food cupcake recipe - but didnt know how to incorporate this into the name. Being an Easter themed cupcake, I thought the word devil would be in poor taste. Due to a lack of imagination, I had no real choice but to name this cake as if it were a Kinder suprise. This was the one thing that kept coming back to me, that there was this gooey little mess of surprise waiting to be bitten into. In this case, I went with..... Creme Egg Surprise.

Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Eggs being submerged in the centre..

Ready to bake..

Fresh from the oven..

I just love the look of this piping technique..

Ready to sprinkle and decorate...

Easter sprinkles are added..

The gooey centre!!

Creme Egg Surprise Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes
Prep time: 30 mins         Cook time: 20 mins

Devils food cupcake (adapted from Martha Stewarts recipe)

1/4 cup  dutch-process cocoa powder
1/4 cup hot water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup sugar
1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sour cream
12 mini Cadbury Creme eggs frozen & de-foiled ( I found it easier to de-foil before freezing as the foil can become stuck to the egg and once frozen can be a mission to remove it all)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and line cupcake pan with 12 baking papers. 
Whisk together the cocoa powder and hot water until mixed well and consitency appears smooth. In a seperate bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. 
Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat until combined, stirring at all times. Pour into mixing bowl and beat on a medium speed for 4-5 minutes. Add eggs and beat until incorporated into mixture, scraping sides down regularly. Add vanilla, then cocoa mixture and beat until combined. Now add half of the dry ingredients and half of the sour cream, and mix on low until combined and repeat for second half of remaining ingredients. 


Divide batter evenly amongst baking papers, submerging the creme egg in the centre of each cake. Be careful to cover the top of the eggs in each cupcake to protect them from the heat of the oven. Bake until cupcake is firm to the touch or cake tester inserted into the side of the cake comes out clean (remembering theres a melted chocolate egg inside so may give you a false negative of not being baked.) Allow cakes to cool for 5 minutes in the baking tray before moving to wire rack to cool completely. 

While waiting to cool make your frosting as follows:-

Chocolate buttercream frosting
 
 225gm (2 sticks) Unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups Icing sugar (or use amount according to desired thickness for piping)
1/4 cup Cocoa powder

Whip butter on medium speed for 4-5 minutes. Add vanilla and cocoa powder and mix on low speed until combined. Gradually add icing sugar until desired thickness is reached for piping or spooning onto cupcakes. Decorate cupcakes and Enjoy!