Making cupcakes!
Here's how to make these simple and easy super adorable Spring or Easter cupcakes!
To make the batter, I use a box mix. I used to make all my cakes and cupcakes & icings from scratch, but that took up too much time and the part I enjoy most is the decorating so something had to give. My brand of choice is Duncan Hines. I do change the directions a little - 2 cups of milk + 2 tablespoons of vinegar (let sit for 5 minutes before adding to the batter), 4 eggs and the amount of oil specified on the package.
This is an idea from Hello, Cupcake - put the batter in a ziploc bag and cut off the corner. IT is supposed to make the process neater. I do have less drips on my cupcake pan, but I still find it messy in other ways. I don't do this every time.
Bake.
Now to start making the nests. Start with a 10 ounce bag of marshmallows or in this case 300 grams. I had these in the cabinet and was hoping it wouldn't matter if I used white and pink marshmallows.
First melt some butter. I used the directions from the Rice Krispy website. I believe this is 5 Tbsp of butter (2.5 ounces).
Add the package of marshmallows and melt over medium heat while stirring constantly until mixture is totally smooth. Remove from heat.
Six cups of shredded wheat. I ended up using 7 of the large pieces broken up. As soon as I removed the marshmallows & butter from the heat, I added the crushed up Shredded Wheat pieces. Stir until well coated.
While the mixture is still warm (or hot) and soft, begin shaping the nests. When they are too hot to handle butter the back of a spoon to scoop out and use the back of a second spoon to shape the inside of the nests. After a few minutes the mixture will be cool enough to handle with your clean, bare hands.
Make the same number of nests as you have cupcakes.
You will need 3 jelly beans for each nest. Or you could use chocolate eggs. I was stocking up on jelly beans. I found a few bags packaged for the local population (on the left). The others were at the import store and are from Japan.
Since we need to put the nests on top of the cupcake, the cupcake top cannot be rounded. They must be flat. If yours came out like this...
You will need to cut off the top using a serrated knife.
Frost the cupcakes green like grass.
Fill each nest with 3 jelly beans. I put matching colors in most of my nests.
Place one nest on top of each green frosted cupcake.
Aren't they adorable?
BABY CHICK CUPCAKES
I like variety so I wanted to make one other design of cupcake. I needed a triange of orange and was planning to use the corner of a Starburst. But it seems that one of my children had been helping himself to the Starburts one by one and when I opened the bag, the two Starburts you see in this photo were the only ones left! Not an orange one in sight. So I had to improvise. I found these rainbow Twizzlers in my candy stash and thought this bright orange one would be perfect (looks much more orange in person). So I cute them into squares first and then cut again at an angle to make trianges. I needed one for each cupcake.
These white Fruitips are perfect for the eyes but there were only 7 total so I only had enough for 3 cupcakes.
Dark chocolate frosting in a ziplock bag with the tip cut off (just a tiny bit - maybe 1/8 inch). I used this to put a pupil in each eye. I hold the tip straight above the place on the eye I want, squeeze gently and as the icing hits the spot I want it I make a gentle circle until I get the size of the pupil that I want.
For the rest of the eyes, I found this icing writer in my stash. It is made by Wilton. It was a gift from a friend - thank goodness I had this! Otherwise my chicks would not have any eyes! I used the lid of the icing writer to stamp a circle on the icing and I traced the outline and filled it in to make perfectly uniform circles!
Here they are with their adorable little faces. Be careful where you place the elements of your face - especially the eyes. THat is what will give your cupcake its character. The little tuft of feathers on the top was originally 3 orange jimmies - which I don't have nor can I buy here in China. So, I improvesed and used three orange flower sprinkles. You can see a better glimpse of their shape in the last photo of this series.
Here are the cupcakes on my cupcake tray just before I had to cart them to the school in the rain.
I had one extra cupcake that I frosted green before I remembered to cut off the rounded part - so what to do? I added some green decorator sugar and a few flower sprinkles to make a cute spring cupcake! These are the same ones I used to make the feather tuft on the chicks! If these are too small for you to handle placing them correctly on the chick, try using a clean, sterilized tweezers.
What's your favorite Easter or Springtime Treat? Tell me in the comments.
I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and that you enjoy making these adorable, yet very easy (espeically the chickies) spring or Easter cupcakes!
Have a great day! And if you celebrate - Happy Easter!
To see everything CUPCAKE related on my blog, click here.
Click here for CUPCAKE BAKING TIPS from my guest blogger, Vernell.
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