Easter Egg Hunt cupcakes

HAPPY EASTER!

My friend emailed me the other day and said her boss had organsied an easter egg hunt around her office. There was a flurry of excitment as everyone was rummaging around looking for chocolate. I loved this thought and wanted to try and do something similar for my office. I came across this great picture on Pintrist and decided to try it myself with my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe. 

So, happy easter everyone. And more so, enjoy a much needed long weekend!

Chocolate cupcakes

240g plain flour

80g cocoa powder
280g caster sugar
3 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
80g butter, at room temperature
240 ml milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. In a bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter. Mix using an electric beater until you get a sandy consistency. On a low speed, beat in half the milk until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining milk with the eggs and vanilla. Add to batter mix on a medium speed until smooth. Don't over beat, but make sure it is smooth and not lumpy.

Pour the mixture into individual cupcake holders about 2/3's the way. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. When ready, remove from oven and allow to completely cool before icing.

Vanilla Icing
250g icing sugar
80g butter, at room temperature
25ml milk
a few drops vanilla extract

Beat the icing sugar and butter together. Slowly add the milk and beat until light and fluffy. Taste the icing at this point, if you want it to be a bit creamier, add a dash more milk and keep beating. Add the zest of half a lemon (or the zest of a full lemon if you want a stronger flavour). Beat to combine. Spoon icing into a piping bag and pipe onto your cupcakes.

Chocolate grass

200g white chocolate

Blue, red and yellow food colouring

Melt the chocolate in the microwave (watch carefully so it doesn't burn). Add 2 drops of red, 2 drops of blue and one drop of yellow and stir to get a dark green colour (I was silly and added a drop of green first, through my colouring completely off). Using baking paper, make a piping bag and draw little lines of "grass" on a clean sheet of baking paper.