When I recently put a call out to my friends for ideas for recipes that they’d like to see on the blog, one of my friends suggested a cake recipe for Easter Sunday. I figured that’d be a great idea because it’s always nice to be able to bake something with your kids on Easter Sunday and it’s also an excellent day to celebrate the beautiful substance that is chocolate. (Perhaps eclipsed only by Halloween?)

Whenever I think of Easter I tend to think of eggs and birds, so it seemed natural to want to create a bake that was shaped like a bird’s nest. I bought some mini silicone bundt cases from Lidl a while ago and I figured that they’d be perfect for baking my gluten-free chocolate cakes in to create the perfect bird’s nest shape. Although I got mine from Lidl you can buy them from loads of places, such as Lakeland or Amazon.

I had a butternut squash to use up in my fridge and, knowing how well it works in cakes, I used it as the base of these bird’s nest cakes. As a result, the cakes remain soft and moist after they’ve been cooked. One Easter bird’s nest cake is a low FODMAP serving.

These Easter bird’s nest cakes are formed of cocoa and butternut squash-based gluten-free soft bundt cakes which are filled with a rich chocolate buttercream icing and are topped with crispy-shelled chocolate-filled mini eggs. They’re ideal for serving on Easter Sunday as a little treat for kids, as a tasty treat for adults with a cup of tea or coffee, or slightly warmed up in the microwave as a delicious dessert to finish your Easter Sunday meal. I’d bet even the Easter Bunny wouldn’t be able to resist one.

Ingredients for the cakes:

300g butternut squash (raw weight)

100g gluten-free flour (I use Dove’s Farm G/F flour because it’s made with low FODMAP ingredients whereas many other gluten-free flours are made with high FODMAP options.)

40g cocoa powder

1 tsp xanthan gum

100g butter (or dairy-free version)

160g sugar

2 tsps baking powder

1/2 a tsp of bicarbonate of soda

1 egg

1/2 tsp dried ground ginger

The zest of 1 orange

Ingredients for the chocolate icing:

20g cocoa powder

80g icing sugar

40g butter (or dairy-free version)

3 tsps orange juice

Mini eggs to decorate

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F/Gas Mark 6.

Lay out 12 silicone bundt cases on a baking tray and dust the inside of them with gluten-free flour.

Peel and dice the squash before cooking it until soft in the microwave and leaving it to cool.

Once it’s cool, put it in a large mixing bowl along with all of the wet ingredients and mix well.

Add all of the dry ingredients and mix well.

Divide the mixture between the 12 silicone bundt cases and bake in the oven for 15-20 mins or until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Leave them to cool completely before removing the cakes from their silicone bundt cases and placing upside down.

Make the icing by mixing all of the ingredients together and put some inside the hole in each bundt cake.

Put some mini eggs on top of the icing and serve.

If you like this try this:

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Snickerdoodles 

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Rice Crispy Cakes

Chocolate Soufflés 

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