Cute, simple and fun Easter Nest Cupcakes, great for getting your little ones involved in the kitchen this Easter.

Includes the recipes for little vanilla cupcakes and buttercream frosting.

Last week we had a St Patrick’s Day/Easter bingo morning to raise funds for the PTFA at Daniel’s school. At the last minute I was asked to make something for the children and decided on cupcakes as they’re so quick and simple and always seem to go down well. I wanted to make something simple but with a bit of an Easter theme and created these Easter Nest Cupcakes. They proved popular with the children (I think there’s something very tempting about mini eggs stuck to a cake!) so I thought I’d share how to make them here.

The original cupcakes for the bingo morning

I’ve tweaked the design a little from that first batch, with smaller cakes, lighter coloured icing, and the addition of little flowers (in my experience almost any decorated cake can be made prettier with a few little flowers added to it!). They’re really simple so great to make with little ones, and to show you just how simple they are (and how much fun you can have making them) I got Josh (my 3-year-old) to join me in the kitchen to make this little video tutorial.

It’s possible I’m just a super proud mummy, but I think I’ve got a little superstar in the making 🙂

Easter Nest Cupcakes

Makes 12 small cupcakes

I made these cupcakes using my super easy go-to vanilla cupcake recipe (just my all-in-one vanilla birthday cake sponge in littler form). It’s great for making with children as you simply put everything into a bowl and give it a good stir. However, you can use any cupcakes you like, or simply use ready-made ones from your local shops.

All-in-one mini vanilla cupcakes

Ingredients

• 110g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 110g soft margarine
• 110g caster sugar
• A few drops of vanilla extract
• 2 tsp milk
• 12 small cupcake cakes

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.
2. Put your cupcake cases into a small muffin/cupcake tin.
3. Sift the self-raising flour (110g) and baking powder (1 tsp) into a large bowl. Add the other ingredients (2 eggs, 110g soft margarine, 110g caster sugar, 1 tsp milk and a few drops of vanilla extract) and give everything a good stir until it’s fully combined.
4. Spoon the mix into the cupcake cases, ensuring it is evenly divided, and put the cupcakes into the oven for 18-20 minutes. To check if they’re cooked insert a skewer and if it comes out clean then the cakes are cooked, if not pop them back in for a couple more minutes.
5. Once cooked, remove them from the tray and move them to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

Vanilla Buttercream

For extra tips on making perfect buttercream icing, take a look here.

• 100g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 200g icing sugar
• A few drops of vanilla extract
• A little milk

Method

1. Cut the butter (100g) into cubes and beat until soft.
2. Add the icing sugar (200g) and a few drops of vanilla extract and beat until fully combined.
3. You’ll find that the buttercream is quite stiff so add a little milk (about 1 tsp at a time) and beat until fully combined until your buttercream has a spreadable consistency.

Decorating the cupcakes

What you’ll need

• Cupcakes
• Butter icing
• Brown food colour (I use Sugarflair gel colours. Avoid using liquid food colour as this will make your icing too thin and runny)
• Green food colour
• Piping bag fitted with a grass nozzle
• Knife (for spreading the buttercream)
• 24 small chocolate eggs
• White fondant icing, rolling pin, a yellow food colouring pen and flower cutter OR flower sprinkles

Method

The easiest thing to do is to watch this video (it’s less that a minute long) where I’ve done a quick demonstration of what you need to do…

1. Take ¼ of you buttercream and add some brown food colouring (add a little at a time as you can always add a bit more if you want to make it darker, but you can’t take it away!). Mix until the colour is even. Fit a piping bag with the grass nozzle and fill it with the brown buttercream.
2. Add green food colouring to the remaining buttercream and once again, mix until the colour is even.
3. Put some green icing on top of your cupcake and spread it until it is relatively even.
4. Pipe the brown icing in a circle on top of the cake, go round about 3 times to add a little height to your nest.
5. Put 2 chocolate eggs into the nest.
6. If you’re making your own flowers – roll out a little fondant icing, use the flower cutter to cut out about 48 flowers and draw a dot in the centre of each with the food colouring pen.
7. Decorate each nest with a few flowers.