Easter is rapidly approaching and to celebrate the occasion Dr. Oetker is celebrating with bums, bunny bums to be more precise. If you’re in London or Manchester you might have noticed the arrival of a 7ft giant bunny bum constructed of over 3,000 bars of Fine Cooks’ chocolate- something I’m pretty upset I missed to be honest. Still, when given the opportunity to create my own mini bunny bum structures I didn’t feel too upset and hopped to it sharpish.

Armed with the Bunny Bum recipe, an envelope full of the key ingredients and instructions to come up with a hack for the recipe it was great to have an excuse to get in to the kitchen and become knee deep in flour once more (and trust me, things did get messy!)
I’ve popped the recipe below, including my little hack so do make sure you let me know if you have a go at making these cheeky cupcakes and if you decided to change things up a bit.

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
Dr. Oetker Muffin Cases (x12 cases)
125 g Margarine (4 1/2 oz of baking margarine, softened)
125 g Caster Sugar (4 1/2 oz)
Large Eggs (x2)
125 g Plain Flour (4 1/2 oz)
Dr. Oetker Fine Dark Cocoa Powder (x1 sachet or 25g/1oz)
Dr. Oetker Baking Powder Sachets (x2 sachets/10g or 1oz)
1tsp liquorice powder*

To decorate:
200 g Dr. Oetker Fine Cooks’ Milk Chocolate (7oz)
15 g Dr. Oetker White Chocolate Chips (1/2 oz)
130 g Dr. Oetker Liquid Glucose
125 g Unsalted Butter (4 1/2 oz, softened)
225 g Icing Sugar (8oz)
2 ½ ml Dr. Oetker Madagascan Vanilla Extract (1/2 tsp)
Dr. Oetker Lime Green Gel Food Colour (x1 tube)

To make:

Preheat the oven to 180˚C (160˚C fan assisted oven, 350˚F, gas mark 4). Put the Muffin Cases in 12 muffin tins. Put the margarine in a mixing bowl, add the caster sugar and eggs. Sift the flour, Cocoa and Baking Powder on top and using an electric whisk on a low speed, gently blend the ingredients together. Increase the mixer speed and whisk for a few more seconds until well mixed.

Divide the mixture equally between the cases and smooth over the tops. Bake for about 25 minutes until risen and just firm to the touch. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To decorate, break up the Milk Chocolate into pieces and place in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water, and leave to melt. Remove from the water and stir in 125g (4 ½ oz) Liquid Glucose to form a thick paste. Scrape on to a piece of baking parchment and leave to cool – the mixture will become firm and pliable when cold. Avoid prolonged chilling as the paste will become too hard to mould.

Set aside 12 White Chocolate Chips. Put the rest of the Chips in a small heatproof bowl and melt as above. Mix in 5 g (1 tsp) Liquid Glucose. Leave to cool as above.

Meanwhile, put the butter in a bowl and beat until smooth and glossy. Gradually sift and beat in all the icing sugar until creamy and soft and add Vanilla Extract. Mix in the whole tube of Green Gel Food Colour. Thickly spread the icing on top of each cup cake, right to the edge.

Divide the Milk Chocolate paste into 13 equal pieces, and form 12 portions into balls. Place a ball on top of each iced cake. Use the remaining portion of paste to make 12 pairs of bunny feet and leave aside on baking parchment.

Divide the White Chocolate paste into 12 equal portions. Use to make 12 pairs of foot pads and press gently onto the feet. Score bunny toes with a small knife, then gently press onto the sides of the bunny bodies. Top each bunny body with one of the reserved White Chocolate Chips as a tail. Your cupcakes are now ready to serve and enjoy!

Note: if the moulding paste becomes too hard to work with, you can pop it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to soften it up again.

Now my hack might not sound like much but the addition of liquorice powder to a chocolate sponge is something of a revelation. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a huge fan of liquorice, it doesn’t add a really strong flavour, more of a subtle kick that enhances the flavour and stops the super sweet icing being too overpowering. You’ll just have to trust me on this one (and do ask about the blackcurrant and liquorice cake I made recently!).

As for the end result, well, I’m no artist and I did find the chocolate paste a little hard to work with- I think because my kitchen gets really hot it didn’t set as well as it should and I kind of ended up with puddle like bunny bums, but I salvaged the best three to show you the general idea…

Ah well, looks aren’t everything right?