Piñata Mini Egg Cake

A colourful four-layer Mini Egg Cake, with piñata-style filling of mini eggs, on a cake stand with a piece on a plate, ready to eat.

4.44 from 32 votes

This Piñata Mini Egg Cake recipe is so fun, colourful and easy if you want to bake an Easter celebration showstopper!

Prep Time25

Cook Time25

Total Time50

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Family Food

Servings: People

Author: Sarah Rossi

Ingredients

500 g Unsalted butter
500 g Caster sugar
8 Eggs Medium, free range
500 g Self-raising flour
2 tsp Vanilla extract

For the icing:

500 g Unsalted butter
750 g Icing sugar
2 tsp Vanilla extract
Sugarflair gel paste food colouring See notes
328 g Cadbury's Mini Eggs

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180℃ fan/200℃/Gas Mark 6.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs until well combined (don't worry if it looks a bit odd, it'll be fine in a moment).
Gently stir in the flour and vanilla. If you're using a mixer, do this slowly or by hand.
Split the mixture into 4 bowls (about 500g in each).
Leave one plain and colour the others with a tiny tiny bit each of Egg Yellow, Ruby and Grape Violet until they are each a pastel shade.
Prepare 4 (or 2 at a time if you only have 2) 7" tins. Oil them and line the bottom with baking parchment.
Spoon each of the mixtures into a tin and bake for about 25 minutes or until just cooked and a skewer comes out clean.
If you've only baked 2 of the sponges, wash them out, prepare them again and bake the remaining 2 lots of batter.
When the cakes come out of the oven, leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack.
Meanwhile, make the icing. Beat the butter until very light, pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes in a mixer or 10 by hand).
Beat in the icing sugar until total combined and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla.
If the icing is a little stiff, add a few drops at a time of boiling water and beat in until fluffy and 'floppy'.
Now to colour the icing: Spoon out 2 lots, each of 200g of icing, into separate bowls. Colour these Egg Yellow, Ruby (pink) and Grape Violet (lilac) using a knife tip of gel colour.
Level the cakes and then use the remaining, uncoloured icing to sandwich the cakes. Cut out the centre core, leaving the top layer intact. Fill with Mini Eggs.
Use the coloured icing to cover the cake with an ombre, graduated colour effect.
Dollop any remaining icing on top to 'glue' a small mountain of Mini Eggs on.

Notes

Butter: Use your butter at room temperature, or if it has come straight from the fridge, microwave for a few seconds until slightly softened

To check it’s cooked: Push a skewer or sharp, thin knife into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, it means it’s cooked

Levelling and decorating: Trim and ice the cakes when they completely cold

Colouring the frosting: When adding the colours, do so a tiny bit at a time and add more if you need to until you get the colour you’re looking for. I like to not quite fully mix the colours in to give a ‘speckled’ effect to both the sponge and the icing. Always use paste/gel colours to colour the cake and the icing (I use Sugarflair in Egg Yellow, Ruby and Grape Violet)

Shelf life: Try and ice and fill this Easter cake the day you plan to serve it. It’s not essential but the Mini Eggs inside will get a little soft if left any later

Nutrition