Steph of The Cupcake Project created a recipe called How to Make Cupcakes in Egg Shells.

But, if you decorate the eggs before serving, you have Easter Egg Surprise: an egg with cake inside.

It’s fun and memorable: Most people won’t have seen anything like it.

Here’s the recipe.

We took it one step further, using white eggs and decorating them.

This protects everyone from any bacteria on the egg, and protects the eggshells from any oils on hands that may prevent the dye from adhering.
 
 
HOW TO DECORATE CAKE EGGS AFTER THEY’RE COOKED

We used a wide paintbrush and took the advice of Incredible Egg to use water warmer than the eggs.

They also caution that hands should be washed in hot, soapy water before and after handling eggs—even if they’ve already been cooked or decorated.

Because a hole has been punched into the top of the shells to insert the cake batter (photo #1), you can’t fully dip cooked cake eggs in dye (well…maybe if you use dark chocolate cake, a bit of color won’t show).

Instead, you can try one of these three techniques.

 
You can practice the first two techniques with the raw eggs in your fridge (and return them for subsequent cooking).

Or, you can color whole eggs and then bake them in the oven to get hard boiled eggs.

The hard boiled eggs look and taste the same.
 

THE HISTORY OF EASTER EGGS

The tradition of painting hard-boiled eggs during springtime pre-dates Christianity. Fertility and rebirth are fundamental to life—not just for people but for the crops and animals that sustain them.

The most ancient known decorated eggs are 60,000 years old: engraved ostrich eggs found in Africa. Decorated eggs have also been found from prehistoric Egypt and the early cultures of Mesopotamia and Crete [source].

[3] Here’s how to get these beautiful colors, from Urban Comfort (photo © Urban Comfort).

The Christian custom of Easter eggs began among the early Christians of Mesopotamia, who stained eggs with red dye in memory of the blood of Christ (more).

The Easter holiday itself is named for the Germanic goddess Eostre (Eostra, Eostur, Ostara, Ostare, Ostern and other names), a fertility goddess. Her name derives from the ancient word for spring, eastre,

She was very popular with Anglo-Saxon pagans in Brittania as well, many of whom were descended from Germanic tribes who migrated to the island.

Eostre’s sacred animal is the rabbit, a symbol of fertility; and the egg is her symbol of fertile purity, both of which involve the spring and new birth.

In Old German, the month of April was called Ostar-manod: Easter month, or month of the Goddess Eostre. In Old English, it became Easter-monab (pronounced eh-AH-ster moh-NATH).

The English word April derives from the Latin aperire, to open (e.g. buds).

[1] Chopped chicken liver on matzoh: a classic. Here’s the recipe from Williams-Sonoma. [2] A deconstructed version from Chef Alex Guarnashelli at Butter restaurant. [3] Mr. Alpenglow created his recipe, inspired by Guarnashelli’s. Here’s the recipe.

When is a piece of matzoh with chopped chicken liver (photo #1) greater than the sum of its parts?

When creative chefs turn it into something spectacular.

Here, the first idea (photo #2) inspired the second (photo #3).

Chef Alex Guarnaschelli of Butter in New York City tops a board of matzoh with:

 
As an alternative to the grape jelly and the crispy shallots, we made these honey-balsamic roasted red onions from Chef Tyler Florence:

RECIPE: HONEY BALSAMIC ONIONS

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F.

2. COMBINE the butter, vinegar, honey, thyme, salt, and pepper in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, turn down to simmer and cook for 1 minute to reduce slightly.

3. PLACE the onions, cut sides up, in a single layer on a baking pan. Drizzle with the honey butter mixture over and roast until soft and slightly caramelized, about 45 minutes.
 
THE SECOND RECIPE

Try this recipe (photo #3) from Mr. Alpenglow.
 
CREATE YOUR OWN

Schmaltz and gribenes, anyone? Or how about foie gras?

Here are reciped for the first two, and the history of chopped chicken liver.

How about an old-fashioned sponge candy recipe? It has that “honeycomb crunch” and can be made for Passover. A recipe is below, thanks to our colleague Hannah Kaminsky of Bittersweet Blog.

She wondered about the old-fashioned confection variously known as:

 
….and, no doubt, other names in other places [source].

They all describe a confection that’s crunchy, crisp in the center, and melts in your mouth.

While there’s no molasses in it, the caramelization of the sugar gives it a bit of molasses flavor. You can have it covered in chocolate, or not (Hannah’s recipe goes for the chocolate).

Hannah wondered: “Where did all those names come from, and why did they keep renaming the exact same candy?” She set out on a mission to make her own.

“I cooked and caramelized, stirred and stewed, bubbled, boiled, and crystallized my very own sweet. If anything, what I created was even darker and more powerful than the old-fashioned candies you can purchase.

“I used cocoa and dark chocolate, of course, and cacao nibs for extra crunch. But the real secret ingredient here is the chocolate extract.”

The spongy airiness of the candy is based on the middle school volcano trick demonstrated in science class: Baking soda plus vinegar equals bubbles.

You’ll have a mini-volcano in your mixing bowl in Step 5, below. It’s fun, as long as you’re forewarned.

As with Chocolate Matzoh, a.k.a. Matza Toffee, a.k.a. Matzo Buttercrunch, a.k.a. whatever, sponge candy is a treat you can make for Passover.

But don’t make it in the summer heat and humidity and plan to serve it at a picnic or barbecue. If you need a fix, make it and eat it in the comfort of your air-conditioned home.

Ready to make some four-chocolate sponge candy (photos #3 and #4)?

> September 21st is National Sponge Candy Day.

> The history of sponge candy.

> The year’s 60+ candy holidays.

> The year’s 69 chocolate holidays.

[2] If you don’t know what’s inside, you’ll be delighted by the honey crunch.

[3] You can find sponge candy worldwide, often under different names. This angel food candy is from Kitch Me in Australia.

[5] Bet you can’t eat just one piece!

[6] Hold the chocolate! This recipe for “honeycomb candy” is from The Pioneer Woman.

If you don’t want chocolate, you can make sponge candy without it. Here’s a recipe.

Ingredients

 
Plus

 
Preparation

1. LINE an 8 x 8-inch baking dish with parchment paper and lightly grease. The parchment doesn’t need to fit perfectly inside the pan, as long as it covers the bottom and sides without any holes for the liquid candy to escape through.

2. COMBINE the sugar, agave, 4 tablespoons of water, and vinegar in a medium saucepan. Stir just to moisten all of the sugar, and place over medium heat. Swirl the pan gently to mix the ingredients as the sugar slowly melts, but avoid stirring from this point forward to prevent premature crystallization. Meanwhile…

3. MIX together the remaining tablespoon of water, cocoa powder and chocolate extract in a small dish; set this cocoa paste aside.

4. COOK the sugar until the mixture is caramelized and reaches 300° to 310°F, also known in candy-making as the hard crack stage. Remove the pan from the heat. Things will move very quickly from here, so be on your toes.

5. VIGOROUSLY STIR in the cocoa paste along with the baking soda, allowing the mixture to froth and foam violently. Immediately transfer the liquid candy mixture to your prepared baking dish but do not spread or smooth it down. Allow it to settle naturally to maintain the structure of the fine bubbles trapped within.

6. COOL for at least 1 hour until fully set. To finish, melt the dark chocolate in a microwave-safe dish, heating at intervals of 30 seconds and stirring thoroughly between each one, until completely smooth. Pour over the top of the candy base and spread it evenly across the surface. Sprinkle with the cacao nibs and let rest until solidified.

If you’re bringing it as a gift: It’s fragile, so transport it carefully.

And may we suggest: crushed or sliced sponge candy makes an exquisite topping for vanilla ice cream, or layers in a parfait.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF SPONGE CANDY

Sponge candy is known by so many different names that it’s difficult to discern where it originated. The closest we can find in English is that sponge candy was produced as early as 1913 in Beamish, a village in northwestern England’s Durham County. It was made in copper pans over an open fire.

We do know that in the U.K., the Cadbury Sponge Candy Company first mass-produced sponge toffee in 1929, and created the Crunchie chocolate bar with a sponge candy center.

In the U.S., the product called sponge candy took root in Buffalo, New York, which is still the sponge candy capital of the country.
It is an airy variation of toffee with a light, sponge-like texture.

Different versions of sponge candy have come and gone, as you can read in this article from an octogenarian who remembers it from 1940s New England.

But look internationally, and you can find that the Turkish version, törökméz, dates back to ancient Turkish cuisine and was adopted in Hungary during the Ottoman Era* [source].

Did a candy maker from Hungary settle in Buffalo? Does sponge candy date to Anatolia (most of modern Turkey).

Neighboring Persia (the modern Islamic Republic of Iran) was cultivating sugar by the sixth century C.E. The ancient Sumerians in Babylonia were making vinegar from way, way back to 5000 B.C.E.

So, what we think of as 20th-century sponge candy may have been the continuation of an ancient recipe.

________________

*Ottoman Hungary was the territory of Medieval Hungary that was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1699. More.
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.