Cupcakes in Real Egg Shells

My little sister sent me this idea courtesy of Cupcake Project. It's such a fun concept so I decided to make them for a friend to surprise her little girls with. I can't wait to hear about their reactions. They didn't turn out as pretty as I'd hoped, but I think they'll still be fun.

I used good old fashioned yellow cake mix from a box. It makes much more than you'd need for these. I made 9 eggs and a dozen regular cupcakes.

Start by using a cork screw to make a little hole in the top of the shell. I used my fingernail to pick the shell off and make it a little bigger. Just be sure to break the membrane inside or nothing's going to come out.

You want it big enough that the contents will come out and big enough that you can fit a piping bag tip in there, but not so large that it spoils the surprise.

Dump the contents into a bowl. I used a chopstick to break the yolk so that it would come out. I am going to make quiche with the eggs, so I separated them with three eggs per container. It will be impossible to tell how many are in a big bowl.

Rinse the eggs in warm water then submurse in hot salt water for 30 minutes. Rinse and allow to dry.

If you want plain eggs, you could go ahead and fill them once they're dry. I decide to dye mine to make them more festive. I used simple food coloring and vinegar dye, prepared according the box direction.

I attempted ombre dying my eggs. For whatever reason, you could only really see it with the teal. (Obviously, because it's the best color in the world.) And my "purple" ones turned out more brown than anything.

To get the ombre effect, I dipped it repeatedly at varying depths. It's pretty straight forward egg dying. Once they're dry, go ahead and fill them. A cooling rack with paper towels under it is perfect for drying.

To get the eggs to stay upright, simply put a small piece of tin foil in the cupcake cups to support the egg.

Use a piping bag, or zipper bag with the corner cut off, to fill the eggs. I filled mine 3/4 full and it was far too much. I would recommend only filling them half way. Bake for 20 minutes.

As you can see, mine overflowed a lot! It's really no problem if you used undyed eggs. I just used a paring knife to gently get the excess off the shell. The problem I encountered was that it also removed the dye from my eggs.

From one angle they are very pretty with a fun surprise inside.

From another angle, they're a little gross, but still filled with cake. I can get over a little ugliness for some cake. Inside an egg carton or sitting in an egg cup, you'd never suspect it was full of cake. I would have lost my mind over this as a kid. Let me know how your guests react!