Its Easter Peeps!

I decided to treat my colleagues at work to some more cupcakes, this time to celebrate Easter. This was also the first time I got to try some Peeps, and actually find some to buy in the UK.

I always struggle to find these around any of the American holidays; whether they are in original Peep bird form, bunny, ghost, Christmas tree, cat or any of the other shapes, these just so popular they sell out immediately. And considering only a certain amount of them are shipped to the few American import stores that exist here the chances of them getting replenished are little to no chance.

I see all these wonderful things they get used for on Pinterest for American Easter bakes or table decorations and I sigh. Mainly because there are just so many available over there to be able to just use willy-nilly as a crafting material, and because they are so much cheaper there.

For example: 1 pack of 8-pieces yellow bunny Peeps in the US from Walmart is $1.24 (before tax) which is 87p in the UK. If I wanted to buy the same thing imported from an American snack store online here, the best prices I can find for the same product is £3.69 so $5.20 (probably including tax). This by the way ISN'T including the postage costs either! You can see if I just wanted to use them for fun decorating projects the amount of money I could spend would sky rocket!

This kind of price structure of course applies for any of the things I use for any of the celebrations or bakes that I want to use American products for. I just have to weigh up how much I want to spend to get something. At least Amazon.com delivers to the UK now for what I have decided to look at as a reasonable price considering what the product would be if I was imported by another company and then sold on to me. They don't deliver food stuffs here though so boooo to that!

Anyhoo....back to the cupcakes.

These first cakes were just plain vanilla cakes with vanilla buttercream on top. I tried to make a grass effect by using a multi-hole tip but I didn't even nearly pipe it right and they came out like spaghetti. Ah well, stick a Peep on and some Smarties chocolate eggs and they were done.

The other ones I tried came out really cool, although I have no cross-section photographic proof of how cool they were. These are chocolate cakes and into the sponge I cut a cone shaped hole. This I filled with the orange butter cream until it protruded from the surface of the cake. This created the effect of a carrot in the ground. When sliced in half you can see the whole carrot shape and its looks awesome. I frosted it with chocolate buttercream and then topped that with broken up chocolate sponge to give it an earthy effect. I have made these a few more times since and I love them each time.