Easter Cupcakes

By Amanda Formaro

One of the easiest treats to dress up for holidays and birthdays is the cupcake. All you need is food coloring, cake decorator gel and frosting, and a little imagination.

You will need

your favorite box cake, any flavor

red, blue, yellow, and green food coloring

white icing (recipe below)

green, black, pink and orange decorator gel

yellow and white decorator frosting

decorating tip

white and multi-colored sprinkles

multi-colored non pareil sprinkles

yellow and blue sugar

circus peanuts

red licorice whips

red and white gumdrop

cupcake liners

Prepare cake mix as directed. If desired, you can make colored cupcakes with either a flavored mix, such as cherry, or add a few drops of red food coloring to a prepared white mix to make pink, blue to make light blue, and so on. Put cupcake liners into muffin tin and fill liners as directed on box cake mix. Bake as directed and allow to cool thoroughly before frosting and decorating.

Prepare the white icing by following the recipe below. When finished, separate into five small dishes. Add a few drops of food coloring to each bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed. You can make pink , light green, light blue, purple, and yellow, or mix to make whatever colors you like.

White Buttercream Icing

16-ounce package confectioners sugar

6 tbsp butter or margarine, softened

3 to 4 tbsp milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

In a medium bowl, with mixer at medium-low speed, beat all ingredients until the icing is smooth and of easy spreading consistency. Add a few drops of red food coloring, 3 for light pink, 6 or so for dark pink.

Decorate

That's really not much to decorating cupcakes, especially in the eyes of your admiring children. Just a dollop of frosting is artistic enough for them! Here are a few simple tips that will help you decorate your holiday cupcakes.

Piping - Using the tip on the decorator frosting, pipe strips across the frosted cupcake to decorate like an Easter egg.

Sprinkles - The beauty of sprinkles is that there is no perfection involved. SImply drop them and let them ly where they fall. Use contrasting colors, and mix colors when pleasing. A great way for kids to decorate with sprinkles is to have them dip the top of the cupcake right into the container of sprinkles.

Sugars - Using colored sugars is easy, and doesn't have to be messy. Simply dip the entire top of the frosted cupcake into the sugar for a blanket look. Dip the edges of a frosted cupcake to create a border, and then decorate with a sprinkling of non pareils.

Bunny - Cut the bottoms off of two circus peanuts for the bunny's ears. Cut two small pieces of circus peanuts for the cheeks. Cut the tip of a gumdrop for the nose, and cut two teeth from a white gumdrop. Use licorice whips for whiskers and black decorator gel for the eyes.

Frosting only - Use the different colored frostings to decorate one cupcake. Spread half of a cupcake with one color, and carefully spread the other half with another. You can also spread a full coat of one color, and dot the center with another. Get creative and try swirls or other shapes by using only frosting.

Be sure to store your cupcakes in a tightly covered container so they do not harden or go stale. That is, if they last that long!

Back to The Holiday Index!

About The Author

Amanda Formaro is the entrepreneurial mother of four children. She is the founder of FamilyCorner.com Magazine, craft expert for Kaboose.com, and runs a host of blogs, including her popular food blog, Amanda's Cookin' and her craft blog, Crafts by Amanda

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