Raiin Monkey: easter baking

Hi everyone! Happy Easter! I hope that you are all having a wonderful day, filled with lots of chocolate (or other yummy goodies if chocolate is not your thing!). One of my favourite things to do on Easter Sunday, and on the days leading up to it, is to bake. There are so many scrumptious Easter snacks that can be incorporated into cakes or cookies, etc., so the possibilities are pretty much endless. I have been wanting to make something using Cadbury's Mini Eggs for so so long. They are the best thing about Easter in my opinion! Not only do they taste delicious, but they also smell amazing (like honestly, someone needs to make a mini egg scented candle already!) and look so pretty! I had been brain-storming ideas for a few weeks, mostly with the help of Pinterest which is a fabulous tool for creative inspiration, but I just couldn't decide what to make! Then about a week ago now, facebook came to the rescue. A video by a blog called Taming Twins popped on my news feed, featuring the most delicious looking cheesecake ever! I knew right away that I wanted to have a go at making my own, especially since I'd never made a cheesecake myself before. So my post today will be a recipe one, and I hope you all enjoy it!

Something that I just loved about this cheesecake is how pretty it looked and I was definitely a little worried that my attempt wouldn't look as aesthetically pleasing, because I almost always mess up a little when it comes to decorating my baked goods, oops! However, this time around I am really happy with how my mini egg cheesecake turned out!! Keep reading to find out how I made my cheesecake :) Oh, and here's a link to the original post where I got the recipe.

What you'll need to make your Easter Mini Egg Cheesecake

♥ 140g unsalted butter

♥ 280g digestive biscuits

♥ 2 tubs of 280g full-fat Philadelphia cream cheese

♥ 600ml double cream (550ml for your cheesecake & 50ml for the topping)

♥ 140g icing sugar

♥ 5 standard bags of Cadbury's Mini Eggs- 360g for your cheesecake & the remaining for decorating the top

(the originally recipe used much more for the topping, although together using 7 bags VS my 5).

♥ Any flavouring you may want to add- the original recipe added lemon juice & I choose to add vanilla instead.

♥ You will also need a baking tin that has a removal base. The original recipe recommended a 7'' one, and I managed to find one at a local pound store for £2.50.

How to make your Easter Mini Egg Cheesecake

1. I recommend that you start by chopping/crushing your mini eggs, that will be added into your cheesecake mix later on. The original recipe recommended chopping them in half, but I found this difficult. Our knives just weren't sharp enough and I was having too many close calls almost chopping off my fingers XD so I decided to crush my mini eggs up using the end of a rolling pin. I weighed out 360g of mini eggs, added them into a large mixing bowl and literally bashed them with my rolling pin, until all of the eggs were broken up into quarters.

2. Put your crushed mini eggs to the side in another bowl, and weigh out 280g of digestive biscuits into your large mixing bowl. Crush them up until you have a mix of crumps that resembles lumpy sand. I used the end of my rolling pin again to do this.

3. Next, weigh out your unsalted butter (140g) into a microwave-safe bowl. Set your microwave to two minutes to melt your butter, checking it every so often and stirring the butter until it's all melted. Now, pour the melted butter into the digestive biscuit crumb and stir thoroughly. Add this mixture into your baking tin and flatten it down, creating the base of your cheesecake.

4. Now it's time to make the main mixture for your cheesecake. Start by whipping 550ml of the double cream in your large mixing bowl. I used an electric whisk to do this. It takes a while for the liquid to look like whipped cream, but just keep at it until it forms a thick mixture.

5. When this is done, you can add the other ingredients into the bowl. I added the two tubs of cream cheese first and gently folded it with the whipped cream a little, then I put in the 140g of icing sugar and did the same until it was mixed in thoroughly. Finally I added in the crushed mini eggs that I had prepared earlier. After stirring them into the creamy mixture, I finished off by adding vanilla flavouring until I was happy with the taste of the mixture.

6. Spoon the cheesecake mixture into the baking tin, pressing it down to fit as much in as you can. Smooth out the top using a palette knife or spatula (like I did). Then pop it straight into the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. I left my cheesecake in overnight.

7. The last step to your Easter Mini Egg Cheesecake is decorating the top. Once you've taken your cheesecake out of the fridge, you can remove it from the baking tin. You might want to loosen your cake from the side of the tin with a knife before releasing the base too. Then it's time to whip up the 50ml of double cream left over from the cake mixture. Finally, adding this to the top of your cake, then sprinkling the remaining mini eggs onto this whipped cream.

And without further ado.. here's my completed Mini Egg Cheesecake!

I think my cheesecake looks so cute! If a cake can look cute, haha :D What do you guys think? I cannot wait to tuck into it after I've had my dinner :) It smells delicious, and I'm sure it's going to taste just as good as it looks! I'm very glad that it turned out this well, and it's definitely encouraged me to experiment making/baking more cheesecakes in the future. Even though, Easter is almost over... all of the mini eggs will still be available for the next couple of weeks so you can all still have a go at making your own Easter cheesecake. I'd love for you to tag me in any photos if my post does inspire you to make one for yourself, so I can check them out :) I hope you all have an awesome rest of your day!