: easter egg hunt :

We all know that Easter is all about chocolate, eggs, and chocolate eggs. So I decided to make a chocolate cake pop egg to celebrate the holidays.

Literally.

I made the eggs using the cake pop method with some leftover chocolate cake I had in the freezer. I even hid a little surprise in each of my egg-shaped pops... keep reading to find out what!

I melted some white chocolate slabs using a double boiler, and attempted to dip half of each egg and then let dry before I dipped the other half. I quickly realised this method was not ideal. The white chocolate was too thick and was leaving blobs on my eggs.

This was not going to work out.


I decided the try doing a pour-over method instead, thinning out the white chocolate with shortening. I placed my eggs on a rack over a tray and poured the white chocolate mixture over it, making sure all sides of the eggs were covered.


This yielded a much better result. So much so infact, that one has to wonder...

Is this an egg? Or an egg?


And when you bite into it....

There's even a yolk! (Made with yellow cake mixed with frosting).


I actually first tried to make this using a sponge cake I had in the freezer, but the cake was too yellow and although I dyed the yolk part with yellow food colouring, there wasn't much differentiation.

For a more "authentic" cakey-hard-boiled egg, try it with a white cake (but remove the top/bottom/side which will brown during baking), and then dye the yolk bit yellow.

Happy Easter!!

: good things come in extra small packages :

I've been a food blog lurker for years, but only recently started checking out baking sites and happened to stumble across Bakerella, the baking genius behind "cake pops"! I clicked through every page of her blog, growing more impressed by each culinary dessert creation. Her creativity was infectious. I too wanted to re-invent desserts into cute new packages!

I decided to start slow. I am, after all, only a novice baker!

I had some leftover cupcakes from the baby shower, so I decided to turn them into cupcake lollipops (sans the lollipop stick). So really... just extra-small chocolate covered cupcake-shaped cakes. I crumbled them up and mixed them in with my deflated frosting (it came in handy after all!).

Result?


I think I need more practice :) But hey, it's only my first time! And they're taaasty.... :)


Visit Bakerella's post for step-by-step instructions and photos! She even appeared on the Martha Stewart show last year during Cupcake Week, showcasing her "good things" :)