Happy Easter! I love this time of year, its starting to get warm, the animals are all coming out and I overall get more sunshine and enjoy the outdoors. Of course I also feel more inclined to bake, below I’ll share some of my favourite bakes from the previous year. One of my many special interests is baking.

I have a few special interests, being Aspergers this can sometimes be perceived as “obsessions” but I can hyper focus and learn how to do things that relate to my special interests much faster than the average person, in general people tend to be able to learn better when passionate and it is the same for us. Being Aspergers means that I normally excel in the subjects I “obess”/have a special interest in. Hyper-focusing is a skill that I have that allows me to put all of my attention on one thing whereas many people especially those without Aspergers don’t have the ability to do this whereas it comes naturally to me even with subjects of little interest. Some of us don’t have this and some of us have things that are way better, we are all very different 🙂

Just above are some treats I made for Halloween, this includes a brain cake which was inspired by Rosanna Pansino (I had to change the recipe as I was unable to find half of the ingredients at the time). Considering I didn’t use the same recipe etc I thought it turned out well and my parents and partner seemed to love it, it also went down well at the Halloween party.  But seriously I think Rosanna is great and I may not be the target audience but I love her baking skills!

HOW TO MAKE A BRAIN CAKE – NERDY NUMMIES 

I also love making brownies so there’s a couple of images of some brownies I’ve baked, I almost always make them different every time but I like using this recipe; https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/best-ever-chocolate-brownies-recipe

There are also some Pretzels which have a green milk chocolate and mint coating, a general chocolate coating and caramel and cinnamon coating.  For parties I always love covering everything with sprinkles because who doesn’t love them. 

Here are some random pictures of bakes I like to do such as; marble cake, cinnamon buns, banana cake, cinnamon toffee popcorn (aware its not really a baked good though haha), chocolate chip cookies, anything rainbow and double chocolate cake. I’ll give any bake a go 🙂

However, I would like to share some bakes that I did last year and this year for Easter.

I made little chocolate cupcakes with bunny bums and chocolate nests with m&ms (last year I couldn’t find any mini eggs AT ALL). This year I made a chocolate Bundt cake with an orange chocolate rice krispie treat nest with mini eggs and drizzle. It looks rather dry and I was really worried it would be all lumpy and hard to swallow however, it was very surprising. It wasn’t dry and even a day after it has kept its moisture. I find chocolate cake can be very dry at times but I was very pleased! Of course I did a generic chocolate rice krispie treat as well.

Easter Bundt cake

Ingredients

• 220g of butter (I use half salted/lightly salted and then unsalted for the rest)
• 40g cocoa powder
• 200g dark chocolate (I used 100g orange Bounville and 100g normal Bounville)
• 350g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (you could use orange extract)
• 320g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 120ml buttermilk (I made this by using Lemon juice and normal milk and letting it sit for a few minutes)

For the decoration;

• 150g of orange Bounville Chocolate
• 50g Rice krispies or coco pops
• 20 mini eggs
• A splash of milk
• 1 table spoon of sprinkles

You can add some golden syrup to make this a richer rice Krispy treat.

Method;

1. Preheat the oven (gas 3, 170°C, fan 150°C). 
2. Use some butter to make sure the Bundt tin is greased then lightly dust with cocoa powder, make sure you remove any excess powder by shaking. 
3. Next melt the butter and chocolate chunks in a heatproof bowl, to do this you have to pop a pan with some simmering water in it on the oven (make sure it is not boiling and ensure that the water isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl) stir the mixture often. 
4. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, eggs and extract until light in colour. 
5. Stir the cocoa powder, flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and buttermilk into the chocolate and butter mixture, then fold in the sugar and egg mixture until it is all combined (make sure all the powders are sifted to reduce lumps). 
6. Pour the fully combined mixture into the Bundt tin and tap the tin on the worksurface which will help remove any air bubbles. 
7. Bake between 45mins to an hour, check with a skewer by pushing it into the middle and when it comes out clean it should be done (I should’ve took it out earlier than an hour to ensure it was for sure not dry). 
8. Cool in the tin for 20 mins, then turn over and take it out to cool on a wire rack.
9. For the decoration, melt the chocolate like you did for the cake (in a heatproof bowl over a simmering pan). 
10. Mix just over half of the melted chocolate with the rice krispies. I popped the rice krispies into the middle of the Bundt cake and then pushed the mini eggs on top. 
11. Move the cake to a serving plate and then drizzle the rest of the melted chocolate and top with sprinkles and mini eggs. This can be kept in the fridge for up to 4 days. 

I love baking and due to always having lots of ingredients I took this hard time to bake a bit and try new things!

Everyone please stay safe and ensure that you are not putting anyone else at risk and even with this lovely weather and holiday weekend please try and stay home. Go for a short walk somewhere safe and don’t risk others lives or your own!

We all have to try together to keep each other safe, it might suck but this isn’t forever ❤