Easter Cupcakes

My second batch of Easter cupcakes are done! I'm trying to come up with as many cute Easter cupcakes as possible. My first Easter cupcakes were chick-themed, these are bunny-themed. Below are the recipes and how-to's. The cupcake recipe is Nigella Lawson's 'Buttermilk Birthday Cake' converted into cupcakes and the frosting is my regular Buttercream Icing recipe. Fun to make (& bake)!


These are some of the other Easter cupcakes I've made.
For recipe and how-to's click on the picture.





Buttermilk Cupcakes: Nigella Lawson's 'Buttermilk Birthday Cake' - How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Will make about 22 cupcakes, but I halved the recipe, so I got 11. This is the full recipe:

Ingredients:
- 1 ⅔ cups all-purpose-flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cups + 2 tablespoons buttermilk (or ⅓ cup plain yogurt mixed with ½ cup low-fat milk)
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cups soft unsalted butter
- ¾ cup sugar
- 3 large eggs

Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C.
- Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl and set aside. Pour the buttermilk into a measuring cup and stir in the vanilla. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed and add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between additions. Add alternating increments of the flour mixture and the vanilla-buttermilk, blending well after each addition; this should take 3 to 5 minutes.
- Fill the cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.




Buttercream Icing:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup confectionars' sugar
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (if you want to make white icing replace the butter with shortening)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons milk
- 1 drop red food coloring (if you're making pink)

Instructions:
- Sift the confectionars's sugar.
- Add the softened butter (or shortening), milk, vanilla and food coloring.
- Mix until the frosting has a slight dropping consistency.


The buttermilk cupcakes, just out of the oven.


Easter candy.


My bunny sprinkles!!!


Here's what to do: you take 1 marshmallow and cut the edges off. The edges will automatically form like a football-shape, and that's what you want.


Sprinkle some pink (or any color you like) crystals on the sticky side of the marshmallow.


1. Your cooled cupcake.


2. Put a tablespoon of white frosting on it and with the back of a teaspoon make a swirly motion to spread it evenly on the cupcake. Also, if you add some more milk to the frosting, it will spread more easily and evenly.


3. Add your ears.


4. In the middle put a miniature candy (I used mini-smarties). If you're using this buttermilk recipe, you can put it on the highest peak of your cupcake.


5. Draw the wiskers on with black or chocolate frosting.


6. Draw the eyes and you're done!


Look! Bunny made some friends!


Et voila! The end result.





Update #1: Yay!!! Second place on AllRecipes.com!


Update #2: Zen Cupcake posted my bunny cupcakes on their website! "Everyone is going to want to devour these on sight!" Quite true, they didn't last very long! Thank you for posting ZenCupcake.com!