April 8th
2007
It's Easter time, are you in for a seasonal baking treat? Here's a great and fun alternative to hard boiled eggs...
Some trivia: Have you ever wondered what determines the color of a chicken egg shell? It's all about the earlobes. Well, almost, it depends on whether or not the chicken is a purebred. If so, chicken with white lobes predominantly deliver white eggs, ones with red earlobes brown eggs. Araucana chicken are special: they produce green-bluish eggs. If the chicken is a crossbreed really anything is possible.
Poke a tiny whole in the bottom side of the egg by using a needle or an egg poker. Carefully enlarge the hole using a pointy knife, make sure to only break small pieces of the egg shell to better control the size of the hole, about 1cm (or .5") would be perfect. Turn the eggs upside down and empty them in a small bowl, some of the egg white/yolk will be used later for the cake batter. If the yolk and egg white refuse to come out, take a wooden skewer and poke inside the egg.
Clean the shells in cold water and prepare a bowl with salt water (dissolve 100g of salt in about 1l of water), fully immerse the egg shell, make sure there's no air trapped inside. Remove them after about half an hour, rinse them under cold water and let them dry on a paper towel, with the hole pointing down. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180°C (~355°F).
Baking prep: A muffin tray works great, use little pieces of aluminum foil to form rings, which will help the eggs to stand upright during the filling and baking process.
In a large bowl beat the soft butter together with the sugar until the sugar has dissolved, then add three eggs. Beat well until the batter gets a creamy consistency, then add the flour together with the baking powder. Whisk until evenly combined.
Divide the batter into two separate bowls. Add the eggnog to one, the cacao powder together with the milk to the other bowl. If the batter seems too dense, you may want to add some more eggnog (for the yellowish batter) or a bit more milk (for the brown batter).
Drizzle about 1 teaspoon of sunflower oil in each egg and turn/flip it in your hand until the inside is completely covered. Get rid of any excessive oil. The hardest part is to fill the eggs, you can do it with a teaspoon and A LOT OF patience or you use a piping bag with a small nozzle. If you want bicolored cake eggs, start with one batter and finish with the second batter. Fill the eggs up to half and two thirds full, sort of trial and error - I seem to never hit the exact amount: Sometimes it is too few and the eggs will look incomplete or it is too much and the batter escapes through the holes, making a mess. You can easily remove the excessive parts after they're cooled down, so better add a bit more.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. A wooden skewer should come out clean, if the cake eggs are done. Remove from the oven and let cool down completely before cracking them open and peeling off the shell. Surprise, surprise, here's a cake egg!
Happy Easter to all of you!!!
Bicolored Easter eggs
own creation, inspired by chefkoch.de
Prep time: ~1 hour, baking: 25-30 min.
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Ingredients (yields about 8 eggs):
100g butter, at room temperature
100g white sugar
8 eggs (medium or large, shells only), 3 for the batter
100g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
~2 tbsp eggnog
1 tbsp cacao powder
~2 tbsp milk
sunflower oil for greasing the eggs
aluminium foil
Great idea! beats eating egg salad sandwiches and macaroni salad for a week!
truely amazed with this. I am very surprised with the fact that you can bake an egg shell? wow... this is awsome, maybe i should try this next year?
Thx for sharing!
Wow, this is sooooo sweet. I would have never thought of doing that.
Thanks.
Love
- fanny
Amazing!
How fun! I thought you were going to do chocolate filled eggshells, but no, something new to me! I would love to try this and I will try filling them with some sort of chocolate or fruit ganache. I don't like custard, but that could work too.
adorable!!
that is so cool! i'll definitely try it. thanks for sharing such a great idea.
I did try eggshells filled with panna cotta and also tiny egg-shaped white chocolate truffles with saffron this year, but this is something very different again and really lovely! Knowing that eggshells can be baked...well I have a lot more new ideas now:)
very beautiful ! I'll made some eggs with white chocolate and mango yellow !
Probably on my blog this afternoon...
That's a great and cute idea! Unfortunately, I didn't hae any needles and my attempts with various kitchen implements resulted in some sad looking broken eggs :(
That is an awesome idea. Thanks and Happy Easter :)
Those are fabulous! Will definitely have to try them.
[...] Delicious Days is whipping up some fun-looking last-minute Easter eggs. [...]
One question, Do you reckon i can prepare the egg shells in advance? and how long do you think the egg shells can be kept before baking after being steralised...? Many thanks!
So funny & lovely, creative!
i will try to make them.
[...] Easter egg muffins (tags: recipe baking dessert muffins eggs) [...]
Hiya, I have tried making them today, unfortunately the eggshell cracked during the baking process, do you think this is cause by my over-filled eggshells? or it is due to the oven temperature being too high? Finally, the receipes stated 8 eggs, i find a bit of difficulties during the mixing process of adding all 8 eggs since the eggs and butter proportion is a bit of range in difference... any tips during the mixing process?
Excuse me for asking so much questions, would really appreciate if you can answer them! = )
A pure Aracauna is very rare, there is about a 25% mortality among the chicks. Their eggs are a pure blue. Aracauna's also don't have tails. You are almost always seeing an Americauna, a cross between an Aracauna and a brown-egg layer chicken which gives you the green-blue egg. My Americauna's have brown ears but green feet. Almost all of my brown egg layers have brown feet and my white egg layers have white or light yellow feet. When I sell eggs, I make sure there is at least one "green" egg in the pack. Everyone loves them.
Oh wow!
What a brilliant idea! Thanks for sharing!
Could always make a little hollow in the cake using a melon baller and filling the hole up with pastry cream to resemble a yolk...
I'm curious as to why the cake doesn't make the eggs crack when it bakes, from expanding. I'd think that would happen, especially since there's already a crack started from getting the innards out.
Anyway, I'm impressed!
"... A LOT OF patience ..." The fact that it has snowed here for 4 days now makes me think it's not a good time for me to start something like this. Totally cool, though. What a fun thing to serve.
Nicky, that was...truly brilliant! What a fun thing to serve at the Easter feast. I may need to get both of my sisters and mom on board for this one next year (many hands make little work). You've inspired an idea: if time were in abundance (ha! ha!), after they are baked and de-shelled, one could dip the egg-cakes in chocolate, and then decorate them after they have cooled and hardened (while listening to the Chocolat soundtrack, of course). Wrap them in those wonderful clear celophane sacks that make the crinkly/confection sound with a little ribbon... Voila- party favors!
Awesome idea. I'm saving this one to do with my nieces next year. Thanks.
Oh these are cute. What a fun idea.
What a lovely idea! Adorable and delicious... I love the idea of adding a hint of eggnog in.
So, so cute! I can't wait for next Easter to arrive to surprise the class I teach. But maybe I will need the time inbetween to practise making them? Thank you for sharing!
Adorable!
Wirkliche eine lustige Idee, so kann man die Küchlein auch gut zum Picknick mitnehmen.
Great idea! I tried making this, and may have not done something right. Does the batter really take all 8 eggs? Mine were very "eggy" and tasted more like bread pudding. While most grew up and out of the shell, they didn't fully expand inside, so they looked like some Dr. Suess creature. Any thoughts? I'd love to try again...
I tried it, but substituted Baileys for the eggnog, which I can highly recommend. Filling the eggshells with a teaspoon is a labour of love, after two eggs I used a piping bag and the rest of the eggshells was filled in no time. I followed Stefanie's idea to dip them in chocolate which gives endless possibilities for all kinds of decorations. A lovely Easter treat.
Oh, it's so funny and beautiful, egg surprise for Easter!
lovely idea! do you think it is possible to paint the eggs after baking them, for example with a brush and watercolors?
[...] cake in an egg via delicious days [...]
Having tried again, I got it right this time! Woohoo~ i realise you listed 8 eggs, but you didn't mention we would only use 4 eggs in the batter? ooo.. i managed to yield more than 8 eggs with the batters = ) all my friends were fasinated by them, i gave some away for a friend's birthday, satisfied our chinese tradition of giving eggs to the birthday star! = ) Thanks for sharing again.
Can't wait to try this -- fantastic idea!
You've been nominated to the Blogger's Choice Awards! http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/6407
Brilliant you guys! These are a definite for next year's Easter celebration! I've about had it with boiled eggs especially after I left my eggs in the dye too long (trying to bring out the vibrant colors) and the shells started to turn soft.
What a coincidence I tried making similar ones to yours, Honey Easter eggs. I didn't have as much patience as you though and I gave up and went with oval shape moulds. Well done on the result.
Denae, Thank you for shedding more light on the Aracauna and Americauna chickens. I don't think I ever laid my hands on any of these green eggs, but I adored them on photos.
Li, Fabulous idea! Served in a little egg cup, I'm sure this would make a memorable dessert!
Aprille, Good question. I've made them at least four times now and never noticed any cracks when baking, never thought about it. Anyone?
Suzie, I always prepare the eggshells within one or two hours before baking the cake eggs, so I cannot offer any valuable tips on how long it'd be fine to keep the eggshells before using them. Preparing them on same day should be ok, I think. Sad to hear your eggshells cracked, even more because I never experienced any problems with this recipe and have probably baked it four or five times, sometimes over-filling them, too. And thanks for the feedback: To avoid any misunderstandings I clarified the number of used eggs for the batter in the instructions steps.
Hi Stephanie, "Many hands makes little work", may I borrow that phrase, for asking Oliver to help me cleaning up the kitchen mess I just made? Your idea of dipping the cake eggs in chocolate was already tried by another reader btw ;) Great minds think alike!
[...] i’d bake me some furry eggs. Easter’s long gone, but i can’t help but stare at these in wonder. who’d have thought to bake in eggs like this! the eggs look so … furry. it [...]
I just posted on green eggs for Easter. If you want more details on what causes shell color and how to buy the most nutritious eggs, please check out the post. I hope you find it as helpful as I did this great recipe idea!
Great recipe! Thanks for updating it with the changes. The first time I made the batter with all 8 eggs and the exploded in the oven. When I made it with just three they turned out perfectly, and very much impressed the folks we were having dinner with.
I didn't have eggnog, so I zested a lemon and an orange into the batter and they turned out lovely and citrusy.
this is a very nice idea. i enjoy reading your recipes!
[...] Last minute Easter eggs » Blog Archive » delicious:days Egg-shaped cakes. How cool. Reminds me of some other cute cake vessel idea I saw online. What was it? Hmm, it’s (sadly not) on the tip of my tongue… (tags: cake eggs eggshells baking blog food recipes) [...]
[...] Delicious Days has an intriguing Easter egg idea - baking cake inside eggs. [...]
[...] Last Minute Easter Eggs *cute idea, make cake eggs baked right in the egg shells [...]
This is cool! Thank god we have some more days, I want to surprise my kids with these cuties. Thank you for sharing :)
I baked them! They turned out great! The look in the childrens' (and their parents') faces was unforgettable! THANK YOU for a wonderful blog, for your creativity and the clear explanations which make even challenging recipes seem doable.
[...] Easter, I decided I wanted to make these awesome cakes baked in egg shells. I find them pretty magical, and fairly easy to make, if a little [...]
I know this is a little late for Ostera/Easter, but you can bake the eggs, peel em and freeze them a bit and then coat them in a "Magic Shell" type chocolate. (1 part coconut oil 1.5 parts chocolate melted and blended together) and make perfect chocolate covered cake eggs!
I loved this idea so much, I decided to make these for easter. I didn't use your recipe (probably should have) and I made lemond cake. I painted different faces on them and took them to work. People loved picking out the ones that looked like them and didn't want to break the eggs. Thank you soo much for the idea!
OMG, how cute is this?
Awesome Idea! Thanks so much.
Well, I can only say your idea looks delicious, as usual, and very crafty. Before I was sure that it was indeed cake inside those eggs, I got a bit creeped out, thinking those were... toasted chicks in the photos. Oy, terrible. I really have to try out this idea soon though. Thanks for the inspiration :)