How To Bake Cupcakes Inside Your Easter Eggs

Come Sunday morning, what's the first thing you'll be guaranteed to stuff your face with after an exhausting Easter basket hunt? Will it be fruit-flavored jelly beans, a block of rabbit-shaped chocolate or an entire box of florescent pink Peeps?

Guess again. Before you reach for that basket of sugar the Easter Bunny left you, chances are you'll probably be cracking open a semi-cold, dye-stained hard boiled egg. Stinky and unappealing as it may seem, we all know it's coming. But it doesn't have to be this way -- especially not if your eggs are filled with something a little more appetizing.

Say, something like vanilla cake? Stefani Pollack -- editor, photographer and official taste-tester for her blog dubbed the Cupcake Project -- shares with us her method and recipe for baking cupcakes inside egg shells for an extra-special holiday treat.

"You can bake any cupcake recipe in cleaned-out egg shells, and when you are ready to eat the cake, you just crack the egg and dig in," Pollack explains. "Ah-mazing!"

See also:

- South Florida Easter Brunch and Dinner Guide

Don't let a little tactical maneuvering of cake batter into eggshells scare you away from this fun holiday recipe. Take it from the pro: anyone can do it with the right tools and a little patience. After all, Pollack herself had never even baked a Betty Crocker cupcake before offering to churn out dozens of them for her friend's 2006 wedding.

"In doing so, I began to go a bit cupcake crazy," Pollack states on her blog. Today, her cupcake obsession has grown to become a true passion project -- one that has landed her features in magazines including People and Better Homes and Gardens for her astonishingly creative custom cupcake baking ideas posted on Cupcake Project.

Even though it took Pollack about nine months to learn how to bake wedding-worthy cupcakes, her tips and tricks for baking them inside egg shells can be learned in a single afternoon. For step-by-step instructions on Pollack's latest Easter egg cupcake recipe that includes a faux cream cheese icing "yolk" center, keep reading:

The following instructions by Stefani Pollack include steps for dying eggs, baking cupcakes inside egg shells, and adding a cream cheese "yolk" filling.

Easter Egg Cupcakes

Ingredients:

18 extra large white eggs (Only three will get used in the cake. The rest are just used for their shells.)

1/2 cup of water for every egg color you want

1 tablespoon vinegar for every egg color you want

Food dye (as many colors as you'd like)

Cupcake Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

2 eggs (from above)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 teaspoon lemon extract

1/2 cup sour cream

Cream Cheese "Yolk" Ingredients:

1 egg (from above)

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

Gold and yellow food coloring

Dyed Eggs Directions:

1. Carefully poke a small hole in the top of each egg. An easy method: use the tip of a corkscrew bottle opener.
2. After poking a small hole in each egg, peel back the edges of the hole to make them large enough to fit the tip of a piping bag.
3. Turn each egg upside-down and dump out egg whites and yolk. Keep the contents of two eggs separate for the cake recipe, and one egg separate for the cream cheese "yolks."
4. Rinse the inside of each egg and submerge in a saltwater bath for 30 minutes.
5. Rinse egg shells in cold water to remove the salt.
6. Prepare separate cups for each color you would like to dye your eggs using a kit or by combining water, vinegar and six drops of food coloring.
7. Dunk eggs one at a time until they are dyed the desired color.
8. Place eggs hole side down on a paper towel to dry.

Cupcake Directions:

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, mix eggs and sugar until light and creamy.
3. Add the butter and lemon extract and mix until fully integrated.
4. Mix in the dry ingredients until just combined.
5. Add the sour cream and mix until smooth.

Egg Filling and Baking Directions:

1. Place the prepared egg shells into a cupcake tin. Use aluminum foil to help them stand upright.
2. Load the cake batter and the "yolk" into piping bags fitted with small tips.
3. Fill eggs about 1/4 full with batter.
4. Top the batter with "yolk" until the eggs are about 1/2 full.
5. Top the "yolk" with more batter until the eggs are about 3/4 full. If you underfill the eggs, you won't have complete cake eggs inside when you crack them after baking. If you overfill the eggs, cake will flow out of the eggs during baking. It's best to let the cake overflow slightly and remove the excess cooked batter after baking. Then simply clean the shell with a damp towel before serving.
6. Bake eggs at 350 F for 20 minutes.
7. Let cool, crack and enjoy.

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