Easter Cupcakes!!

Yup its that time of year. Bright pastel colors, marshmallow peeps, bird chirping etc etc lalalala blah blah blah :) So I took the opportunity to sit down and plan out some cuppycakes for Easter. Most of the designs made the cut...some didn't and others just didn't turn out how I pictured them. But that's ok the ones I did make look really good. Wishing my pictures were better my photography stinks and really doesn't do them justice. I made one type of cake and just decorated them differently. These took a lot of time because I had so many designs to do and couldn't narrow down my creative eye. But it's ok because it's been weeks since I've been able to actually spend time in the kitchen. It was nice especially since no one was home and I had the kitchen to myself.

There are 3 designs:
1.  Chocolate covered peeps

2. Birds Nests

3. Bunny Cupcakes (my personal favorite)

I will do the best I can do break down the designs per ingredient. But I will start with the cake recipe. I tinkered with my white cake recipe, instead of using all purpose flour I used Cake Flour. These came out dense and I have gotten mixed reviews on them so far.

White Cupcake Recipe:
3/4 cup of butter (room temp.)
3 eggs (room temp.)
2 1/2 cups Cake Flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups milk

1. Line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners.
2. In a medium bowl stir together flour,baking powder, and salt.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
4. In a large bowl beat butter with mixer on medium to igh speed. Gradually add sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time beating until combined. Scrape sides of bows; beat about 2min more or until light and fluffy.
5. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
6. Beat in vanilla extract.
7. Alternate add flour mixture and milk to butter mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.
8. Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup fill liners, smooth out the top of the batter in each cup.
9. Bake for 18-22min or until wooden toothpick comes out clean. Place on wire racks to cool completely before icing.

Cream Cheese Icing
**I doubled this recipe to have enough to cover and decorate all 24 of my cupcakes**
1 8oz package cream cheese (room temp)
1/2 cup butter (room temp)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
white food coloring
(For making peep cupcakes you will also need light pink, light blue, and light yellow food coloring)

1. Beat butter and cream cheese and vanilla with an electric mixer.
2. Gradually beat in powdered sugar.
3. Once Frosting is fluffy add in white food coloring (more is more here add as much to get the "whiteness" you want.  Adding this will turn the icing white since the butter tinges it yellow and will allow the addition of the colored food coloring to take better.)

Peeps Design:
12 peeps
melted chocolate
1 cup pink colored icing
1 cup blue colored icing
1 cup yellow colored icing

1. Melt chocolate, dip peeps place on wax paper and allow chocolate to set up.
2. While waiting for chocolate to set you can swirl the colored icing on the cupcakes. I used about 1 cup of each color to top 4 cupcakes. I made 4 blue, 4 pink, and 4 yellow.


Birds Nest:
1 cup white icing
9 egg shaped M&Ms
green edible Easter grass as the nest
**This makes 4 cupcakes**

1. Swirl white icing on top of cupcakes
2. wrap the green grass around the cupcakes and form a nest. (yes by looking at the picture I would be a bad bird mommy my babies would freeze I am not a good nest builder!)
3. place eggs in the center of the cupcakes


Easter Bunny Cupcakes:
**8 cupcakes*
8 large marshmallows cut in half diagonally (for the ears)
Pink gel writing icing (this is usually sold in food stores near the bakery and birthday candles)
8 mini marshmallows cut in half (so you have two circles)
8 pink jelly beans (for the nose)
16 black jelly beans (for the eyes)
Shredded coconut

1. Cut the large marshmallow in half diagonally and use the pink gel to fill in the center of the ear.
2. Cut the small marshmallow in half so you have two circles.
3. After icing the top of the cupcake with white icing top with shredded coconut.
4. Place the "ears" on top of the cupcake place two black jelly beans for the eyes the pink for the nose and mini marshmallows for the cheeks.

In the opening image you can see one where I tried to add a "smile" but it looked like crud so I did not repeat on the others. I was also going to try to add whiskers but didn't have black writing gel *shrugs* next time. I will definitely want to make these again. They were super fun!!

I hope everyone has an awesome Easter! Eat lots, drink some, converse with friends and family, and play with the kiddies.


Enjoy!
<3 Laura ^.^