Easter is a perfect time to bake… with Chocolate! Well that’s what Helen Nathan, creator of the successful Flossie Crums baking adventure series believes.
Helen is one of the UK’s leading children’s baking experts and has already had two books published about the baking adventures of 7 3/4 year old Flossie Crums, who thinks Baking is Brilliant! A third Flossie Crums adventure is due out in June. In Book One, Flossie Crums is stunned to find that there really are fairies living at the bottom of her garden. In fact there’s a whole fairy kingdom, inside her giant chestnut tree. And when the fairies taste her chocolate cake, they waste no time in appointing her ‘The Royal Baker for the Kingdom of Romolonia.’ Helen’s books combine beautifully illustrated, fairy tale adventures, with simple recipes which even small children can follow. And we’ve been granted a special sneak preview of one of the recipes from book 3 “Flossie Crums and the Royal Spotty Dotty Cake.”As well as some special Easter recipes, exclusive to our readers.
EASTER CARROT CUPCAKES : (make 12 large cupcakes or 24 ‘mini’ fairy sized cakes)
What you need:
2 large eggs
175g golden caster sugar
150ml sunflower oil
200g self-raising flour, sifted
2 medium carrots, coarsely grated
1 tsp vanilla extract
icing:
200g tub Light Soft Cheese
50g golden icing sugar, sifted
mini sugar carrot decorations (visit www.flossie crum.com)
What you do
Turn the oven to 180c
Beat the eggs, sugar and oil until mixture looks a bit like custard..
Gently mix in the carrots, flour and vanilla extract. Spoon cupcake
mix into 12 cupcake cases and bake for 20 mins.
Beat the icing ingredients together with a wooden spoon and spread a
couple of teaspoons of icing on the top of each cake (or use a piping
bag for an extra special ‘posh’ look).
Decorate with mini icing carrots or chocolate eggs.
Flossie’s top tip: You could put anything you like that’s ‘eastery’ on
the top of these cute cup cakes – chocolate eggs, yellow sweeties,
edible yellow glitter (from www.flossiecrums.com) or even your
friends’ names. You could even arrange them in an Easter basket with a
big yellow ribbon!
FLOSSIE CRUMS BUNNY BISCUITS (makes about 20 cookies)
What you need:
280g plain flour
200g firm unsalted butter
100g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla essence.
what you do:
Turn the oven to 200c
Put the flour and butter in a food processor and blitz to form ‘bread
crumbs’ add the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Turn on the processor and keep the
blade turning until all the dough comes together into a ball
Flossie’s tip: It seems to take ages and you think you need to add
more liquid, but you don’t! Just like magic you finally get this big
doughy ball! Wrap it in cling film and let it have half an hour’s rest.
Roll out the dough on a floured table top, giving the dough a little
wiggle each time you roll it so that it doesn’t stick!
Using your easter cutters, stamp out shapes and put these on a greased
baking tray.
Cook for about 7 minutes at 200c
Flossie’s tip: You don’t want the cookies to be too brown, just pale
and and a tiny bit golden round the edges.
Leave them to cool before lifting off the tin with a blunt knife.
You can tie a little ribbon onto each basket or round the neck of the
bunny, it looks really professional!
Flossie tip (this recipe works for any shaped cookie, why not visit
your local kitchen shop and see what types of cutters they have.
You can either make these ‘plain’ or ice them.
FLOSSIE CRUMS EASY PEASY CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH EASTER EGGS
175g soften butter
175g caster sugar
200g drinking chocolate (Flossie’s tip: Please don’t use coca powder!!)
4 eggs
75g self raising flour
Turn oven to 200c
Mix everything together with a wooden spoon or in a food processor.
Spoon all the mixture into a greased cake tin (or better still, a
silicone tin so that you can be sure that nothing sticks)
Bake for 35 minutes. Leave to cool completely then tip out the tin and
scatter with chocolate eggs!
CHOCOLATE FLAPJACK ‘NESTS’ WITH BABY EGGS!
200g porridge oats
125g butter
2 dessert spoons golden syrup
4 dessert spoons condensed milk
1 dessert spoon drinking chocolate
Turn oven to 160c
Melt everything together, except the oats. Take off the heat add the
oats and spoon into muffin tins. Using the back of a teaspoon make a
slight indent for the eggs to sit in their ‘nest.’
Bake for 18 mins.
When cool, pop out the tins and pop in the eggs.
