Easter Baking: Juliet Sear’s Recipe For Easter Bark Cupcakes

We are very excited to be sharing an Easter recipe from professional baker and This Morning chef Juliet Sear! Her Easter bark cupcakes are the perfect Easter weekend treat - and straightforward enough for little bakers to get involved with as well.

These jolly cupcakes look really effective with the easter bark shards bursting out of the luscious chocolate frosting! You can customise the bark and toppings with your favourite chocolates or mini easter eggs! 

Recipe Information:

Serves: 12-16 depending on size

Best eaten within 3 days, store in an airtight container to keep fresh in a cool place but not in the fridge. 

What you’ll need:

Cupcake tin/s

Cupcake cases, brown look lovely for Easter but you can use whatever you like

Stand mixer with paddle attachment, electric mixer or bowl and wooden spoon

Piping bag

Open star nozzle, I’ve used a 1M

Baking sheet covered in baking parchment

Sharp knife 

Scales

Spoons 

Wire cooling rack

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

175g plain chocolate chips (70 per cent cocoa solids)

200g light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar

175g soft, salted butter

3 medium eggs and 2 egg yolks

100g sour cream at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract

150g self-raising flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

For the frosting and decoration:

250g white chocolate

Easter mini eggs and sprinkles of your choice

250g unsalted butter, soft

450g icing sugar, sifted

2-3 tbsp milk

150g dark chocolate, melted and cooled slightly

1 tsp Vanilla extract or bean paste

Method:

Make your Easter bark in advance so it has set when you need to add your decoration. It’s really simple to make, just melt the chocolate and pour it over a baking sheet and bang it on the surface to settle the chocolate. Sprinkle over mini eggs, broken and whole and some lovely sprinkles. Leave in a cool place to set.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF/Gas 4)

Place the chocolate, sugar and butter in a heatproof bowl. Put in the microwave at medium heat for 1 minute intervals, stirring at each interval, until all melted together. Alternatively, melt in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Do not allow the bowl to touch the water. Allow to cool slightly.

Whisk the eggs, sour cream and vanilla together. Mix together the flour and cocoa powder with a whisk to combine.

Add the egg mixture to the melted chocolate mix and stir well.

Fold in the flour and cocoa. Spoon into cupcake cases to just over half to 2/3 full.

Bake for 15–20 minutes until just firm. The knife should come out slightly sticky (but not wet) when it’s cooked – not clean, as you’d expect from a vanilla sponge. Leave to cool in the muffin tray for 5 mins then take out to cool on the rack.

Meanwhile, make the buttercream:

Melt the dark chocolate and set aside to cool

Place half the icing sugar in the stand mixer bowl and add the softened butter. Beat on slow until all the powder has disappeared into the butter, add the vanilla and turn up the speed to medium and beat until pale and fluffy for a minute.  

Add the rest of the icing sugar, beat on slow until combined, then whip up again for a minute until pale and fluffy. Add a little milk to loosen the buttercream, then with the mixer on slow, pour in the cooled melted chocolate and beat through until the buttercream and chocolate have mixed fully. 

Load the buttercream into a piping bag and pipe over each cooled cupcake, starting at the edge, holding the bag vertically, with the nozzle close to the cake and squeeze in a continuous motion circling around the outside edge of the cupcake case and winding inwards and upwards to create a whippy effect. 

Cut the Easter bark into different size pointy shards and plunge into the buttercream at different angles.