Easter Menu Tag Game!

This morning I received an invitation from the lovely cajunlicious blogger, Jessica, to take part in an Easter menu tag game!  I feel privileged that she chose me to be a part of this game; it will be exciting to see what other bloggers come up with too!

The aim of the game - Each person that is tagged is to come up with 5-10 suggested MENU ITEMS for EASTER. You have to upload these entrees, appetizers, desserts, or whatever you think would make a lovely Easter dinner/lunch from your previous posts with the photos, and link them back for the recipe.  After doing this, link it to 10 bloggers for the invitation to do the same! 

LETS PLAY!

Cream of Butternut Squash and Chili Soup - served cold - starter sized portion.

Pork Medallions in a Lemon and Herb Crust, served hot, with salad and sweet potato chips (optional)

Pea and Ham Soup - served hot -main sized portion.

Spring Themed Chocolate Butterfly cakes 

After Eight Cupcakes - perfect for the end of a night; don't eat them until after eight though.

I am inviting to play this game - 
Lucy @ The Kitchen Maid
Linda @ My Kind of Cooking
Mary @ One Perfect Bite
Teresa @ A Blog About Food
Yadi @ Shop. Cook. Make
Mango Cheeks @ Allotment 2 Kitchen
Shahana @ Me n My Apron
Amy @ Amy's Dinner
Caroline @ All That I'm Eating
Amuse Bouche @ Amuse Bouche

Hope that you can all find the time to participate, it's just a bit of fun :)

Have a lovely Easter weekend everybody!

After Eight

These are my 'After Eight' cupcakes, I've been meaning to blog about these for a while but I just kept forgetting!  This is just a basic chocolate cake - do not use the Nigella recipe, I personally find her cakes quite dry - use the recipe I use which is on the previous blog. 

To make the cupcakes and the butter cream I used dark chocolate which I then melted.  I find that using proper chocolate keeps the texture quite moist, unlike cocoa powder.  So, for the butter cream I used a standard recipe but with 50g less butter, I replaced that with 150g of dark chocolate that I then melted and added to the mixture.  After this has been added and whisked in add a tbsp of peppermint flavouring.

This is the flavouring I used for this recipe because it does not have as many preservatives or strange chemicals in it as Dr.Oetker.  Please do not mix this flavouring with Betty Crocker ready-made butter cream, it will not taste nice at all.  Cutting corners with baking may sometimes seem like a good idea but honestly if you want great tasting and great looking food with as few preservatives, E-numbers etc in as possible then bake from scratch.