Easter Sugar Cookie Cups with Buttercream Frosting

Today Mr B and I headed over to Mum and Dad's for our traditional Good Friday brunch.

A few years ago we decided that rather than buy each other Easter Eggs just for the sake of it we would all take some time out and get together with Nan to catch up and indulge in plenty of hot cross buns, coffee and of course, chocolate!

As usual it was a lovely morning, Mum and Dad always do such a fantastic job on their 'spread' and we were all quite content sitting around the table, bellies full and cheeks sore from laughing.

After lunch Dad took Mr B and I out to the garage where he presented Mr B with a pretty specky gift. The pink helmet is my old bike helmet from when I was a child and has my name hand painted on the back and the little bike is a project for Dad and Mr B to work on together. I can see many late nights in the shed on this one coming up!

Recently I had been eyeing off a recipe for Sugar Cookie Cups and I thought they would be the perfect treat to take along to today's festivities. I was really impressed with how they came out actually, the sugar cookie was soft and chewy and the vanilla buttercream was light and fluffy, not to mention the fact that they were pretty damn cute! It's always a good sign when Dad, Mr B and Nan are all fighting over who gets to keep the leftovers!

Easter Sugar Cookie Cups with Buttercream Frosting - Makes 36

2 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tspn bicarb soda

1/2 tspn baking powder

225g butter, softened

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

1 egg

1 tspn vanilla extract

1 quantity of basic buttercream (recipe below)

36 mini easter eggs

Preheat oven to 190C and grease a mini muffin tin.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy.

Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Sift over the dry ingredients and mix to combine.

Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and place them in the muffin pan.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden.

Use the handle of a wooden spoon (or similar) to make an indent into each cookie. I placed mine back in the oven for 2 minutes at this stage as they were still abit under cooked, but you can judge for yourself if they need it.

Allow the cookie cups to cool before filling with buttercream and topping with an easter egg.

Basic Buttercream

125g butter, softened
1.5 cups icing sugar
1 tspn vanilla essence
1 tspn milk

Beat the butter using an electric mixer until pale and creamy.

Add the icing sugar, vanilla and milk and beat until light and fluffy. You may need to add 1 more tspn milk to get the correct consistency.

For these sugar cookie cups, I divided the frosting into 3 bowls and tinted each portion a different colour but if you are using little coloured speckled eggs they will look just as effective on white frosting.

Enjoy!

Mrs B xx