Easter Egg Surprise Cakes

What kid doesn't love Easter?  With the promise of dozens of little chocolate eggs left scattered around the house, Easter is like a pastel version of Halloween.  You're pretty much guaranteed to get a whack load of chocolate, but you don't even need to go knocking on doors to get it!

When I was a kid one of my favourite things to do around the Easter holidays (in addition to eating chocolate), was dying Easter eggs.  There was nothing funner than mixing up mugs of coloured water and dunking plain boring white eggs into the dye, only to watch them emerge moments later looking fun and colourful.  Within a half hour period we would have a dozen or more hardboiled eggs lined up on the table in a rainbow of colours. What fun!  I'm sure what wasn't fun was the fact that my parents were stuck with a basket full of hard boiled eggs to eat (I didn't like hard boiled back then!)

Photo source

So when my first Easter in the UK rolled around a few years ago, I decided to try and re-create the fun I had as a kid and dye some Easter eggs.  To my surprise I could not find white eggs anywhere!  I mean no where.  I called around to all my local grocery stores, free range egg farms, specialty farm shops, and even Selfridges in London and no one sold white eggs.  Except for duck eggs, and I didn't want a dozen hardboiled duck eggs hanging around.  Even if they were in pretty colours.  After an exhaustive search across the greater London area I discovered that white eggs are pretty much an extinct species in the UK.  It all comes down to a hyped up urban legend way back in the 1970's that brown eggs were healthier than white eggs. Lies I tell you!  All lies!!  White eggs eventually fell out of favour here, which means that the chickens that lay white eggs are no longer kept in the UK - so no more white eggs! :-(

I've since been told that Whole Foods in Kensington, and now Selfridges stock white eggs around Easter for Americans (and Canadians!) so they can dye them just like they do at home.

I haven't had the time to actually get to Whole Food or Selfridges this year, but I still wanted to make some pretty coloured eggs for Easter so I came up with a solution.  Last year I had the idea to bake cake inside eggs.  Yes, that's right.  I baked cake inside of egg shells.  I got the inspiration for my egg cakes from baking cake inside of oranges - something I used to do when I was a kid in girl guides.  This year I went one step further, and instead of baking just a boring white cake inside of my eggs I decided to dye my batter pretty colours in order to fill my coloured Easter egg void.  

I loved the way these turned out!  Just by looking at them you'd never guess that they weren't your regular run of the mill brown egg.  Only up closer inspection will you find the hole in the bottom of the egg where I poured the cake batter.  Try and crack them, and you'll be in for an even bigger surprise!

These eggs are really fun and easy to make, but they are a bit time consuming to empty out before you can fill them with cake batter.  I decided to try out a white cake recipe from a new cupcake book that I had just bought.  While I did really like the flavour and texture of the cupcake (I made a dozen egg cakes and used the rest of the batter for cupcakes), the batter itself was a bit thicker than I had imagined which meant that it was a bit tricky to actually get into the egg - but I came up with a solution for that (I'll explain below).

What I think the best part of these cake eggs is (aside from the fact that they're cake filled eggs) is that they're basically a mini cake in it's own container!  How cute would these be to include in your kids lunch box!  They'd probably think you'd gone mental packing a hard boiled egg inside their lunch and not a cookie or something like that.  Come to think of it, I should have got this post up for April Fools Day!  (Lack of sleep and a 2 week holiday have resulted in a bit of a blog delay).  Oh well, ho hum.  Make them now and surprise your friends and family with them this week instead.

To make these cake eggs you'll need a few things - eggs (duh!), something sharp to poke a hole in the shell (I started off using the tip of a meat thermometer, but found a corkscrew worked better), food dye, and cake batter either from scratch or a mix. You decide.

Easter Egg Surprise Cakes

Classic White Cupcakes

Adapted from the Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 3/4 Cups (345g) Flour

3 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

3/4 Cup (170g) Butter

1 2/3 Cups (375g) Sugar

5 Egg Whites

2 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract (I used Coconut Extract)

1 1/4 Cups (295ml) Whole Milk

12 Eggs (or more if you'd like), emptied

Food colourings of your choice

Instructions:

1.  First you'll need to empty out your eggs.  Start by holding a raw egg firmly in your hand with the bottom (the wider end) facing up.  Using a corkscrew or something else sharp and pointy, carefully but firmly start to make a hole in your egg by twisting / "drilling" into the shell.  Once you create a small hole, you can gently pry little pieces of the shell up and off of the egg until you've got a hole wide enough to get your batter into.  

Next you'll have to actually empty the egg.  Do this by holding the egg upside down over a bowl** and give it a few god shakes.  The egg white inside will start to drool out of the hole.  You can basically pull the liquid egg out from the shell by poking a toothpick through the liquid white dangling out of the egg and pull down.  Do this a few more times, give the egg another shake or two and it should be totally emptied out.  Set your egg aside and continue to empty all of your eggs in the same way.   

Once all of your eggs have been emptied, give them a rinse by holding them under the tap and filling them with water.  Cover the hole with the tip of your finger, give them a few shakes and dump the water out.  Turn your eggs upside down and set them aside in a large bowl, or on top of a tea towel so all of the water runs out.

**Tip: To avoid wasting the eggs, use a few small bowls and empty 2 - 3 eggs into each bowl. This makes them easier to use in recipes later on.  Have a think about what you'll be making in the next day or so, and portion out your eggs accordingly.

2.  Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC).  In order to prepare your cupcake pan to hold the eggs, you'll need to twist strips of tin foil into circles and place them in the bottom of each section of the pan.  This will ensure that your eggs stay in place and don't lean on the side of the pan.  Line another cupcake pan with regular cupcake liners.  Set both pans aside.

3.  Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.  In a large bowl, beat the butter for 30 seconds using an electric mixer.  Gradually add the sugar 1/3 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.  Continue to beat for 4 minutes longer.  Add the whites, one at a time and beat well after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.  On low speed, add the flour mixture and milk alternating between the two.  Beat until just combined.

4.  Decide on how many colours of cake you would like to make, and set out a small bowl for each colour.  Assuming you are making 4 colours, pour about a 1/3 cup of batter into each bowl and add a few drops of food colouring to each until you achieve your desired colour.  Pour each bowl of coloured batter into a piping bag (or ziplock bag with the corner cut off).  Fill your hollow eggs by inserting the tip of the piping bag into the hole and squeezing the batter into the egg so it fills the egg 1/2 - 2/3 full.  Place the filled eggs into your prepared cupcake pan, hole side up.  Use the rest of the batter to make regular cupcakes (unless you want to make more egg cakes!)

5.  Bake the egg cakes for about 10 minutes, or until they're done - you can insert a toothpick into them if your not sure.  Bake your regular cupcakes for 18 - 20 minutes.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before moving to wire racks. 

**Don't panic if the batter overflows from your egg cakes and bakes onto the outside of the shell.  You can easily peel the baked cake off the outside of the egg shell, and use a damp cloth to wipe off any remaining cake and crumbs.  Some of mine looked more like egg volcano science experiments before I wiped them clean. 

That's it really!  These are a bit time consuming because you have to hollow out the shells, but they're pretty cool once they're baked.  Hand them out to your unsuspecting family and friends, and watch their amazement as they crack open and peel these little cakes!

I took my egg cakes one step further and used a straw to hollow out the centre of a few of them so I could fill them with a lemon curd yolk!  You could do the same with icing if you wanted, but I thought a lemony yolk was a nice surprise.

Waitrose Cake Mix Bag Review

I know it's been ages since I wrote my last blog post, but the truth is I've been so busy - not with anything terribly exciting - just getting ready for baby to arrive.  It's been over 2 weeks since I left work and went on maternity leave and to be honest, aside from the baking I did for my baby shower - which I'll share with you soon, I haven't done any!  I've been so busy organising the baby room, cleaning, running around doing last minute errands, and spending time with my mom who was visiting from Canada.  I've still got a few things that I want to try and bake before the baby arrives, but as everyone knows babies are unpredictable and they can arrive without notice.  

And now on to some more recent baking!

About a month or so ago the lovely folks over at Waitrose sent me two of their new summer cake mix bags to try. These aren't your typical cake mixes - rather than having 1 bag of dry ingredients to dump into a bowl and mix with oil, water and eggs, these cake mix bags have real ingredients like flour, sugar, and chocolate that are all pre-measured for you.  You'll still need to add in a few things that aren't included with the bagged mix like butter, eggs and a few other small items.  Because these cake mix bags use real ingredients that you'd find in your own pantry, I'd still consider them to be "made from scratch" because you really are still doing all of the hard work yourself.  So no need to worry about cheating and passing a boxed cake mix off as your own - this is as close to the real thing that you're going to get without buying and measuring the ingredients yourself.

Waitrose currently has two flavours of bagged cake mixes available - a Lemon Pistachio & Poppy Seed Loaf, and a Chocolate & Hazelnut Cake.  The range is also set to expand in September.  

First up I made the Lemon Pistachio & Poppy Seed Loaf which I brought into the office to share.  Sure enough, all of the ingredients with the exception of the lemons, eggs and butter came pre-weighed and in little individual bags, so all I had to do was follow the directions on the package.  

Because the cake was essentially baked from scratch (with exception of weighing the ingredients) it took longer to make than I had anticipated - I just assumed it would be super quick like a Betty Crocker Cake Mix.  My initial thoughts about the Lemon Pistachio & Poppy Seed Loaf were:

- The instructions on the bag called for a loaf tin measured by volume - not centimetres, which I found really confusing because I have several loaf tins of various sizes, and I have absolutely no idea what the volume of any of them is.  In fact, I've never heard of a baking pan measured by volume rather than dimensions.

- The instructions state to beat the eggs and sugar until they're light and fluffy.  I think giving a time would have been helpful here, as it did take quite a while to get them light and fluffy even when using an electric mixer.

The collective feedback from myself and the people that ate it was that we liked the texture and moistness of the cake, but we didn't feel that the lemon flavour was strong enough in the cake.  The glaze was delicious, but we would have liked a stronger lemon flavour, so next time I'd add in more lemon zest and juice.  We also thought it would have been better if the pistachios were left out of the cake.  I don't like nuts in my cakes because they go soft, but as I was trying these cake bags for the first time I thought I should follow the directions exactly. Next time I'd leave them out.  That's the nice thing about these cake mix bags - you can add in or leave out a specific ingredient if you don't like it.

The following week I made the Chocolate Hazelnut Cake and brought it to share with the girls in my NCT baby group.  As with the Lemon Loaf, all the ingredients were conveniently weighed out for me with the exception of the eggs, butter and milk.  I took note from the Lemon Pistachio Loaf and omitted the whole hazelnuts from the cake, and only used them on top as a garnish.  My feedback for the chocolate hazelnut cake is below:

- I didn't think there was enough chocolate icing to go in between and on top of the cake, so I ended up doubling it using my own ingredients.

- Included in the mix are some small toffee balls that you need to melt in a small pan in order to coat some of the whole hazelnuts.  Although this wasn't particularly hard, it would have been a lot easier if they came pre-coated in the toffee.

I much preferred this Chocolate and Hazelnut Cake over the Lemon Pistachio and Poppyseed Loaf.  Perhaps it's because I'm a huge chocoholic, but I also thought the flavours were stronger than the lemon loaf. 

I'd suggest that Waitrose remove the weights that are printed on each of individual ingredient bags.  A savvy person only has to write down the weight of each ingredient in order to recreate the recipe, which would remove the need to purchase the cake mix bags.  I'd also suggest that the ingredients be simplified by adding all of the dry ingredients together in one bag to make things faster and easier.  This would also reduce the possibility of people actually weighing each of the ingredient bags to recreate the recipe.

Overall I'd say the Waitrose cake mix bags were pretty good, and they were moister than I had thought they would be.  My main concern with them would be their price - at £5 for the Lemon Loaf and £7 for the Chocolate Hazelnut Cake, they seem rather expensive when you compare them to a) a store bought cake, b) a regular cake mix (which has no where near the quality of ingredients), and c) if you were to use your own ingredients most of which you'd already have in your pantry.  The quality of ingredients is definitely better than any other cake mix I've seen, but don't let the fact that these are cake mix bags fool you, as they still do take a fair bit of time to bake because you're still technically baking them from scratch and not just adding eggs, oil and water to a dry mix.  I would definitely recommend these for someone who needs to bake a cake to bring along to a friends place for dinner, because you do still get that homemade look and taste with less fuss than you would be if you made them entirely from scratch.  

Lemon Cupcakes With Fruity Meringue Nests

I've had the idea for these cupcakes for ages now, so it was about time I actually got around to making them.  After all it's been nearly 2 months since I've made a cupcake. How very odd of me!

These cupcakes are the perfect summer time treat.  A delicious and moist lemon cupcake with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream, topped off with a homemade meringue nest that I filled with lemon curd and fresh raspberries and strawberries.  AMAZING!!!  They were even more delicious than I imagined they would be.

These cupcakes were the perfect excuse to try making my own meringue nests - one of my many bookmarked recipes from "Desserts" by Gordon Ramsey.  I must point out that this book is not a new release, but the most recent re-print of Gordon Ramsay's book previously titled "Just Desserts".  Despite the original release of this book being over 10 years ago, I would definitely recommend it as it's got some very solid recipes and techniques such as Pear Tatin, Chocolate Torte, Puff Pastry, Creme Patissiere, Brioche, Lady Fingers, Chocolate Truffles - the list goes on and on.  

Desserts is split into 8 chapters: Fruit, Ices and Creams, Mousses Bavarois and Souffles, Crepes and Batters, Homely Puddings, Accompaniments and Chocolates, and Basics.  I think probably the most useful chapter for me would have to be the Basics chapter because it covers things that I've wanted to make for ages, but have just never got around to such as pastries, pastry cremes, and Choux Pastry - which is actually supposed to be very easy.

Summer Berry Filo Horns

There are so many delicious looking recipes in this book I can't wait to make some of the others.  If the rest of Gordon's recipes are as delicious and simple to make as the meringue nests (or Vacherins as they're called in the book) were, then I'm sure I'll be getting a lot of use out of "Desserts."

In order to make these cupcakes I'd recommend preparing the meringue nests a day in advance - you don't have to, but because they take at least 2 hours to bake, so keep that in mind.  

Lemon Cupcakes with Fruity Meringue Nests

Meringue Nests:

3 Large Egg Whites

Small squeeze of Lemon Juice - approx 1/2 tsp

150gr Castor Sugar

1.  Preheat oven to 230ºF (110ºC).  Pour the egg whites and lemon juice into a clean bowl (make sure there is absolutely NO grease, otherwise your egg whites will not whip properly). Using an electric mixer, whisk the whites until they double in volume and hold a peak when the whisk is drawn through them.  While the mixer is still running and add the sugar a tbsp at a time, incorporating completely before adding the next. Whisk until all the sugar has been added and the whites are stiff and glossy. 

2.  Trim a sheet of parchment paper so that it fits onto your baking pan. Using a pencil, draw medium sized circles the size of the top of a cupcake (about 2.5 inches) onto the parchment, and flip the sheet over so the pencilled side is facing down. Spoon the meringue into a large piping bag fitted with a nozzle (I used a Wilton #18 nozzle) and begin to pipe your nests.  Start in the middle of the pencilled circle working your way out to the edge in a spiral motion.  Once you've got the correct base size start building up the walls of your nests by piping around the outside edge 2 or 3 times.  Bake the meringue nests for 2 hrs until they are crisp and lift off the paper easily. Leave to cool completely.  


Lemon Cupcakes:


1 1/2 Cups (188g) Self Raising Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 Cup (114g) Butter, softened
1 Cup (225) Castor Sugar
2 Eggs, room temperature
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Tbsp Lemon Zest
1/2 Cup (125ml) Whole Milk, divided
1 Tbsp + 3/4 tsp Lemon Juice

1.  Preheat oven to 375ºF (190ºC), and line a cupcake pan with 12 paper liners.  Sift the self-rising flour and salt together in a bowl and set aside. 


2.  In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until they're light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is incorporated before adding the next one.  Mix in the vanilla extract and lemon zest. 


3.  Gently beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture, one third at a time, alternating with half the milk and half the lemon juice after each of the first 2 additions of flour. Beat until just combined.  **Do not over mix. 


4.  Pour the cupcake batter into the paper liners so they're about 3/4 full (I weigh mine out on a scale so they're all the same size - usually between 55g-60g each).  Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven until a toothpick comes out clean - about 17 minutes.   Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling a rack, and cool completely before moving on to the assembly stage.


Sweetened Whipped Cream: 

3/4 Cup (175ml) Whipping Cream or Double Cream
2-3 Tbsp Icing Sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1.  Whip the cream with an electric whisk until it's slightly thickened.  Add in the icing sugar and vanilla extract, and whip until thickened.  Just make sure not to over whip or it will turn into butter. 

To Assemble The Cupcakes: 

Meringue Nests
Lemon Curd
Fresh fruit of your choice (I used raspberries and strawberries)
Lemon Cupcakes
Whipped Cream

1.  Fill each meringue nest with 2-3 tablespoons of Lemon Curd and top with freshly cut fruit.

2.  Take your lemon cupcakes and add a dollop of the sweetened whipped cream onto the top of each one.  

3.  Place the meringue nests on top of the whipped cream topped cupcake, and serve immediately.  

**The meringue nests will begin to dissolve once they begin to absorb the moisture from the fruit, lemon curd and whipped cream, so only assemble the number that you need.

Little Bites Of Heaven

The other day I bought some beautiful fresh raspberries.  I was planning on eating them just as they were, but then I came up with an idea.  Maybe it was because my mind is constantly thinking about cakes and other sweet treats, but suddenly plain old raspberries sounded a bit boring.  But raspberry cheesecake sounded good! So did raspberry lemonade.  Problem was, I didn't actually feel like baking a whole cheesecake just to satisfy one little craving, and I didn't have any lemons to make the lemonade.  BUT - I did have a package of cream cheese and a jar of lemon curd in the fridge.  Then it dawned on me - raspberries are like miniature dessert cups made by nature!

I quickly whipped up a batch of my no bake cheesecake, got my lemon curd from the fridge and put each in a piping bag fitted with a smaller star tip.  I took each little raspberry and pipped a dollop of either the cheesecake or lemon curd into them.  The end result was like a little bite of heaven!  The cream cheese ones tasted like raspberry cheesecake and the lemon ones tasted like nice tart pink lemonade!  

I just put my raspberries in a bowl to snack on, but I think they'd look super cute all lined up on a wooden bamboo skewer as a little portable snack for party guests.  

These are super easy to make.  The most time consuming thing is to pipe the fillings into each raspberry.  Just make sure not to snack on them while you're filling the remaining berries, otherwise you may end up with half as many as you thought you would!

Raspberry Dessert Bites

2 Cups Fresh Raspberries, washed 

Lemond Curd, homemade or store bought - it doesn't matter! 

No Bake Cheesecake Filling:

8oz (227g) Cream Cheese (don't use light, as it won't work the same) 

2 Tbsp + 2 tsp (37g) Granulated / Castor Sugar 

1/4 cup (60ml) Whipping Cream or Double Cream 

1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract   

Instructions:

1. Wash your raspberries and set aside.  In a medium bowl mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla using an electric mixer until nice and smooth. 

2. Whip the cream, and then fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture so it's fully combined.  Fold gently though - you don't want to loose all the air in the cream! 

3. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes to firm up. 

4.  Fill two piping bags fitted with small star tips with your fillings - 1 with lemon curd and the other with the cheesecake mixture (note: if you don't have any piping tips or bags you can put each filling into a plastic zip lock bag and snip the tips off of them).  One by one, take each raspberry and carefully fill each one with either the cheesecake or lemon filling making sure not to squeeze the raspberries too much or they'll go to mush!  Fill them all, and then snack away!

As I mentioned before, these would be a great party snack if you lined a bunch of them up on a wooden bamboo skewer.  They'd also make a great garnish for cakes, cheesecakes and cupcakes!

**I made quite a few of these, and couldn't finish them all so I ended up freezing the remaining ones to throw in my fruit smoothies!

And now for something exciting - it's time to announce my giveaway winner!  First of all I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented on my blog to enter the giveaway.  Unfortunately a few days into the giveaway Blogger really started acting up, resulting in my followers widget to go missing as well as the comment forms for my entire blog.  I know many of you tried to leave comments during this time, and I did have to erase a few that appeared with an error message.  Thank you to those of you who took the time to email me your lovely comments over the past few days and also to those of you who requested that you be entered into the giveaway.  I pleased to announce that the comment option is now back up and running, and I really do hope that Blogger has finally fixed all of the kinks they were having with their systems.

I have tallied up the comments and selected the winner at random..........and the winner Salter MyScale is:

Congratulations Rebecca!  I'll be in touch shortly, but if you see this first please feel free to email me your mailing details so I can arrange to have the scale shipped to you.

Lemon & Lime Blueberry Strusel Muffins

Lately I've been on a bit of a fruit kick, but I'll admit that sometimes I buy too much which results in some of the fruit going a bit mouldy before I can eat it.  To avoid this I'll often throw what I know I can't eat into the freezer so I can use it in smoothies or muffins later.  I love muffins.  Blueberry are probably my favorite, but I've just never found a blueberry muffin recipe that I was 100% satisfied with - until now.  Last week I was cleaning out our fridge & freezer when I came across a few things that I just knew once combined would make a super delicious muffin.  Frozen blueberries, a few lemons and limes, and some sour cream.  The results were delicious.  They're not too greasy, and they've got just the right amount of lemon & lime zest in them.  I would definitely make again - and that's saying a lot, because although 99% of the things I bake are totally yummy I don't usually bake the same thing more than once because I'm always looking to try something new. 

I prefer to use frozen blueberries in these muffins because they're solid, so won't turn your batter purple when stirring them in.  You can either purchase pre-frozen blueberries, or do what I do and just buy a container of fresh blueberries and pop them straight in the freezer.

Lemon & Lime Blueberry Strusel Muffins
Makes 12 Muffins

Muffin Ingredients:

2 Eggs
3/4 Cup (170g) White Sugar
3/4 Cup (150g) Brown (Muscavado) Sugar
1/2 Cup (125ml) Vegetable Oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 Cup (250ml) Sour Cream
2 Cups (250g) Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
3/4 Tbsp Lemon Zest (approx 3 Lemons)
1/2 Tbsp Lime Zest (approx 2 Limes)
1 1/2 Cups Frozen Blueberries

Strusel Topping:

2 Tbsp + 1 tsp (32g) Butter
1/3 Cup + 1 Tbsp (78g) Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup (32g) Flour
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Lemon Zest

1.  Preheat oven to 400ºF (200ºC) and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper muffin liners.  In a small bowl combine all of the Strusel topping ingredients and basically smoosh them together with your hands until small little crumbly bits form.  Set aside.

2.  In one bowl combine the flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon and set aside.  In a separate bowl beat the eggs, while gradually adding the sugars.  Next gradually pour in the oil and continue beating.  Lastly add in the vanilla and sour cream and mix until combined. 

3.  Gently fold the dry ingredients in with the wet until just combined.  It's ok if there's a few lumps - just make sure not to over mix.  Lastly add in the blueberries, lemon and lime zest and lightly stir until just combined.  Pour and divide the mixture evenly into your muffin pan and sprinkle the tops of each muffin with a generous amount of the strusel topping.  Bake for 20 - 25 mins (until a toothpick comes out clean).  Let the muffins cool slightly before serving. 

The only thing I would have done differently with this recipe would have been to add a bit more strusel topping on each muffin.  I sprinkled what looked like an ok amount on top of the unbaked muffins, but once they cooked and puffed up a it the strusel topping looked a bit wimpy on top.  I'd recommend covering the entire top in strusel topping, which should result in a nicer look, crunch & flavour once the muffins are baked.

These muffins freeze well in an airtight container or ziplock bag for up to a month.  When you're ready to eat them simply take them out of the freezer about an hour before and leave them to defrost at room temperature uncovered (so the tops don't go soft & sticky)

Enjoy!