Easter Egg Cakes

I decided I had to share a little Easter treat with you today...

These are delicious little Easter Egg Cakes that my sister-in-law makes every year. 

We loooove them!  I seriously start craving these every spring. 

So this year, I got myself an egg-shaped cupcake pan and decided to try making my own.  They didn't turn out quite as beautiful as hers. *sigh* (My excuse is that she's been doing this for years, and has it down!) haha :)  However, they tasted ah-ma-zing!

They look just like eggs, huh?  Except way yummier!

Let me tell you why I love them so much...

They're not too sweet.  They're very portable - no messy wrappers when you want to eat one. 

The bottom of the egg (shell) is covered in blue butter glaze, and the yolk is lemon curd.  In fact,  I like the lemon so much that when I got to the last couple of cakes I gave them double yolks - just for fun.  I was kind of tempted to just cover the whole thing in lemon curd - but that's just silly. :)

Ingredients:

Cakes:

1 box white cake mix (plus all ingredients listed on back of box)

1 (1 oz) box vanilla instant pudding mix

Lemon Curd:

3 large egg yolks, strained

zest of 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup lemon juice

6 TBS sugar

4 TBS unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces

Place a strainer over a small saucepan, and add egg yolks. Press with a spoon until they're all strained through. Add lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar. Whisk to combine. Stir constantly over medium heat with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir sides and bottom. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon. (about 5-7 minutes)

Remove saucepan from heat. Add butter, one piece at a time, stirring until consistency is smooth.

Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; wrap tightly. Let cool, and refrigerate until firm and chilled, at least 1 hour.

Butter Glaze:

3 TBS milk

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1/2 cube (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

food coloring

Pour milk into small bowl, and stir in food coloring until the desired shade is reached; set aside. 

Place powdered sugar in large bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter in small saucepan over medium heat.  Remove pan from heat and immediately pour butter into the bowl with the powdered sugar.  Add milk, and whisk until smooth.  You may need to add milk if it's too thick or more sugar if it's too thin.  Just play around with it until it is the right consistency.  Think glaze not frosting - it should be on the runny side.

Instructions:

This recipe worked out perfectly because the cake mix called for 3 egg whites and the lemon curd called for 3 egg yolks - sweet!

Pour the cake mix and pudding mix into a large bowl.  Add the ingredients it calls for on the box making sure that the water you add is HOT.  Follow directions to make the cake mix.

Make the lemon curd (see above) and refrigerate it.

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Spray cake pan and add a small spoonful of batter - don't fill even halfway or the tops will be too rounded. (Trust me, my first batch looked like little footballs instead of eggs!) haha

Bake for 16-18 minutes.  Watch them carefully! Take them out when the tops start to spring back when touched and they are not quite golden.

Lay them face down on a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Make the butter glaze. (see above)  Dip/roll bottoms of cakes in glaze and lay face down on a cooling rack until the glaze has set.  (You'll want to put something underneath to catch all the dripping glaze.)

After the glaze had dried completely - flip the cakes over onto a plate.  Spoon the lemon curd into a pastry bag and squirt a small circle onto each cake so it resembles egg yolks.

Sprinkle all cakes with powdered sugar.

Enjoy! :D

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