Chocolate Bunny Cupcakes

It’s now officially Spring, which means many things BUT it means Easter is around the corner, so here is my first Easter themed blog post of 2023.

I can’t believe how bad I’ve been at uploading on here and my YouTube channel this year but thats all about to change, as I’ve had some time off work and been able to focus on getting som content made – just the process of editing and uploading – so you may be seeing me a little more often  over the Easter period (shhhh, just in case I go missing again).

The start of the Easter themed baking comes in the form of these chocolate bunny cupcakes… A super simple yet effective way of celebrating. These consist of a chocolate cupcake, topped with a chocolate French meringue buttercream, chocolate ganache and a whole chocolate bunny. This is a lot of chocolate but not in a overly sickly way – so for the chocoholic, its the perfect recipe!

Anyway, let’s keep things short and sweet – there’ll be plenty coming from me in the coming weeks. Let’s get started, shall we?

 

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:

175g butter, room temperature.

175g granulated sugar.

2 eggs.

1 tsp vanilla extract.

145g plain flour.

30g cocoa powder.

1 tsp baking powder.

2-3 tbsp whole milk (to achieve the perfect consistency).

 

Buttercream:

125g granulated sugar.

31ml water.

35g eggs yolks.

1 whole egg.

250g butter, room temperature.

200g dark chocolate, melted and cooled ensuring its not hot.

20g cocoa powder.

 

Decoration:

Ganache (60g dark chocolate + 40g milk chocolate + 100ml double cream).

Easter sprinkles (optional).

12 mini chocolate bunnies (I used the ones available in M&S here in the UK).

 

Method:

Before you et started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep work. I like to start by weighing up all of my ingredients, lining my muffin pan with tulip cases and getting any equipment I may need such as a stand mixer and paddle attachment. Don’t forget to preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

To get started on the recipe, you’ll want to make the cupcakes. For this recipe, I used the all in one method, which works really well for cupcakes as its quick, easy and faff free.

Simply take all of your ingredients and place them into the mixing bowl – mix together on a low speed to start, working your way up to a medium-high speed. You may find the mixture isn’t smooth and glossy – to help this, simply add a tablespoon of milk at a time, until you have ted desired consistency.

Give the bowl a really good scraping down, just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in.

Divide the cake mixture between the muffin cases, filling them around 2/3 or 3/4 of the way full and then placing into your preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).

While the cupcakes are baking, you can make your buttercream – which is my French meringue buttercream. The only additional steps I have that aren’t on the main recipe are adding the melted chocolate, cocoa powder and vanilla  once the buttercream has been made. You treat it the same way as any other buttercream, giving the bowl a good scraping down and chilling or using straight away. It’s a very stable buttercream to use immediately, not like cream cheese icing which isn’t stable at all.

Once you have the cupcakes and buttercream made, you can finish the cupcakes up.

Simply pipe the buttercream on top of each of the cupcakes, with as much or as little buttercream as you’d like. I went with a plain round tip, but you can use whichever nozzle you’d like.

I had some ganache left over from another recipe (which you’ll see very soon, surprise surprise, its something Easter themed), so top each of the cupcakes with some of the ganache again you can use as much or as little as you’d like. I also had some Easter sprinkles in the cupboard, so dashed some of those over to add a little extra Easter flair.

Then top each of the cupcakes with a mini chocolate rabbit and enjoy.

A very simple and straight forward recipe but one that will go down very well when shared, trust me.

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.