Easter Baking

Easter is a great time to indulge in some home baking with the kids, there are so many lovely ideas that you can try out and that are easy & safe for the children to have a proper hand in making.

Yesterday we made some chocolate bark, our usual chocolate & mini egg Easter nests and our own Easter cake. We decided on a chocolate one this year, last year's was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

I have shared the Easter nest recipe previously, along with some great crafty ideas to enjoy with the kids if you're at home this weekend.

The chocolate bark is super easy to make (and there have been many different ideas shared by bloggers recently) and the kids really enjoyed making it. It can get messy so put a tablecloth down, but let them get really stuck in and design it however they want, it really is good fun.

CHOCOLATE BARK

A few solid bars of whatever chocolate you fancy (we ended up using about 600g milk chocolate and 300g of white chocolate for three slabs).
A bowl of your favourite sweets & treats for toppings (we used chocolate buttons, milkywar stars, mini eggs, smarties, M&Ms, maltesers & chocolate chip cookies).

You'll also need brownie pans, lined with greaseproof paper, and some cocktail sticks.

Simply melt your chocolate (we microwaved ours in short blasts, stirring often, but you can always melt it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water on the hob) and then pour into your lined tins however you like.
H had half white, half milk by pouring it in at either end, whereas E had milk on the bottom and then drizzled some white over the top, and swirled it using a cocktail stick.

Then just let the kids drop in whatever sweets they choose, and if you're like E it will definitely need more chocolate, so you can drizzle some more over the top of your sweets for a really messy but nice effect.

Pop it in the fridge and let it harden. When it has completely solidified, you can either wrap it up in cellophane and give to a friend as a lovely homemade Easter gift, or snap it and serve it up on a plate as yummy Easter bark.

As for our chocolate Easter bunny cake, the design was inspired by one I found on Pinterest, and was made using my own recipe.

CHOCOLATE EASTER CAKE

3 eggs
6oz caster sugar
7oz self raising flour
1oz cocoa powder
6oz marg
2 tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract

Cover loosely with foil, and bake in a deep 20cm cake tin on 180 for about 45-50 minutes or when skewer comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool for 10 minutes then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.

& for the GANACHE -

125ml double cream
300g milk chocolate, broken up

Bring the cream gently to the boil, then turn down and add the chocolate, stir with a wooden spoon until it has all melted. pour into a jug or bowl, cover and put in the fridge, stirring occasionally until it is a spreadable consistency (about 30 minutes to an hour).
Then spread over your cooled cake, and decorate as you wish, as you can see we made a little fondant bunny (or at least the bottom half of one!), a butterfly and some flowers, and added a couple of mini eggs.

We also made a white chocolate mud cake covered in white chocolate ganache, I can take no credit for the recipe (which can be found here) but this was the finished product.
We made this for my brother-in-law who has been in hospital as a 'get well soon' treat.

What making and baking are you getting up to this weekend? Do you have any Easter traditions?

I have linked up this post with Make, Do & Push! for Cake Week.