Creative Eggs & Baby Birds

I came across the April issue of the Food Network Mag at Barnes & Noble a couple weeks ago, and was remembered how Justin and I had talked about wanting to try to attempt to create the "Bird's Nest"/"Egg in a Basket"/"Nest Egg".. Justin calls it "Egg in a Hole" (Haha!!). I found the magazine again the other night and Justin was pretty excited to try it this morning.

We made 3 of them and really got the hang of it. We figured out, the trick not to use large eggs. If large is all you have (which is all we had) we just drained some of the egg white out of the shell before dropping it in it's spot. It was way easier than I thought..

Butter bother sides of the bread. Use a glass to punch out the middle of the bread. Grill one side. Once you flip it, crack the egg and drop it in the center. We tried it with the yoke broken a little bit too and it was just as delish!

We saved the middles to make little doughnuts (sorta) like the ones they always have in Chinese restaurants! It was already buttered, so I just covered it in sugar (SO healthy.) and grilled in the pan on both sides. MMM!! I was in my glory.. I love those little Chinese doughnuts..

--

Since I'm blogging about taking on some cooking/baking challenges, I thought I'd include pictures & recipe from some of the cutest little cupcakes I've ever seen.

A few weeks ago, I found this recipe for Martha Stewart's Baby Bird Cupcakes. I HAD to make them for my friend, Beth's baby shower. [Photo - marthastewart.com]

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread coconut on a rimmed baking sheet; bake until light brown, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating pan once. Set aside to cool.

Lightly frost cupcakes with 1 cup chocolate buttercream; set aside. Tint 2 tablespoons reserved buttercream pale yellow; place in a pastry bag fitted with a #349 Ateco leaf tip; set aside. Tint remaining buttercream light blue; place in a pastry bag fitted with a #11 Ateco plain round tip, and pipe three bluebird heads, 3/4 inch in diameter, onto each cupcake. Using leaf tip, pipe yellow beaks. With a toothpick, add melted-chocolate eyes. Form each nest with 2 tablespoons toasted coconut.

So here's how mine turned out. I thought they turned out pretty cute, but obviously not the same. I knew I didn't have frosting bags and tips, so I decided to try a different route.

I followed the instructions to toast the coconut. It seemed to toast pretty easily, so I pulled it out before the directed time. I thought the different mixture of colors/tones are cute anyway! Since I didn't have all of the frosting bags/tips, I found a bag of milk chocolate eggs and dipped them in dyed almond bark (similar to white chocolate). The cupcakes were too small to do 3 birds on each, so I just did one. I did have trouble with their little beaks! For some reason, the frosting I used, wouldn't stay standing up, so I decided to do more of a "triangle" beak. For the eyes, I melted a few chocolate chips and used the tip of a toothpick to paint them on. I would definitely make these little dudes again!

xo