Easter Bunny Biscuits...

Happy Easter everyone! So over the last month I’ve been making a range of Easter themed treats and this is my final one of the year. I can’t believe how quickly we’re hopping through 2019 ( no pun intended when you see what I baked this week…) I wanted to make something quite simple but would make for the perfect little treat. This week’s blog is actually a mixture, recipe for bunny biscuits, what I made my dad for his birthday and some really simple flower decorations. I was so excited to make all these treats and was baking until nearly midnight finishing everything off because I just couldn’t stop.

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For the bunny biscuits, I started by making a standard biscuit recipe. From this recipe is used I made about 25 biscuits but you could obviously make more or less depending on the size. In a bowl I added 500g plain flour and 250g unsalted butter. I rubbed this together to form breadcrumbs, I always hate this part of making biscuits as it always seems to take ages. I guess I could make my life easier and use a food processor. I added some lemon flavouring because I was just feeling that flavour on the day I made these biscuits. It seemed a nice fitting flavour for the lovely spring day I made them on. I then slowly added some milk to bring the mixture together and make a dough that could be rolled out . I literally added a dash at the time and didn’t keep track of how much I added. I couldn’t find my rolling pin, I think I left it at my uni flat so had to improvise and use a bottle wrapped in clingfilm. One thing I have become good at is improvisation since I started baking more. I rolled out the mixture until it was about 0.5cm thick and cut round biscuits out. I baked the biscuits until they were slightly coloured on the edges. I put them in the oven from 15 minutes at 160 degrees. I left them to cool whilst I made my dad’s birthday cupcakes.

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We’ll come back to the cupcakes later. Once the biscuits were cool, I started shaping the royal icing. I didn’t decorate all 25 of the biscuits like bunnies thought it was better to leave some of them plain to be dipped into a cup of tea. On the ones I decorated I put a little buttercream on the top of each biscuit, just so it was a smooth layer. I had some pink and white icing. With the white icing I rolled out little balls to make the tails. I then shaped some oval shapes for the pads of the paws. Using the pink icing I made small balls and one lagers circle for the finishing touches on the paws, as you can see from the photo. These biscuits looked really simple but undeniably cute, like imagine a table of them for Easter. For some final finishing touches I made some little flowers to put around the biscuits. For the flowers, the pretzels used for the base took ages to find in the shops. In the end I managed to get some. For the flowers, really simple all you need is some pretzels, smarties and something to stick them together either melted chocolate or buttercream. I separated the smarties into different colours, stuck them around the pretzel using buttercream and added a yellow Smartie in the centre. As simple as that, but really made the photograph of the biscuits. I think these Easter themed biscuits have been one of my favourites I’ve done so far.

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Going back to the cupcakes, I couldn’t not make something for my dad’s birthday (which is the same day this blog will go up, so happy birthday) for the cupcakes I made some plain vanilla cupcakes. I wanted to make cupcakes and arrange them into his age rather than making a big cake just for a change. As my dad and I are huge Newcastle fans, I thought I’d make him some two toned buttercream. the closest I got to a black buttercream was more of a dark grey but did the job contrasting against the white. In a bowl, I added 250g butter and 500g icing sugar. With a dash of milk to soften it up and bring it together. At this point I split the buttercream into two bowls and flavoured one custard and the other rhubarb because it’s one of dads favourite flavours that I do. I then coloured one half black and left the other one. In a piping bag I alternated putting both buttercreams in the bag to get a mix of the colours and create a nice marbled effect. On a board I arranged the cupcakes to make 51 and then started piping patterns on top. I added some glitter and grey sprinkles to a few of them as a final decoration. I was really happy with how the two colours worked together, I’ll certainly be using them again. It was interesting how the two flavours worked in the buttercream as well, it was really nice.

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This week has been filled with baking, along with several cheesecakes I still need to make. I was really happy with how everything I’ve done so far turned out especially the piping on the buttercream. I love looking back on how much my skills have changed compared to when I made my first cakes. This may be the end of Easter themed bakes, but don’t worry next week will probably be chocolate related with ideas how to use Easter eggs. I hope you all have an egg-cellent Easter weekend and enjoyed these little treats I rustled up.

Lots of love,

Hannah x