Easter chicks cupcakes

Hello, Monday.

Hope everyone had a great Easter. Ours was really wonderful. Did you do any baking? My poor kitchen... it took a beating.

But check out the cutie cupcakes it was able to churn out.

Start with whatever cake recipe you'd like. I went with the WASC recipe I've been using so much lately because it seems to be such a hit. That recipe, halved, made three dozen cupcakes. Bake for about 18-20 minutes.

Then assemble your cast of characters. Here's what you need:

Cupcakes

Chocolate chips

Lemon curd

A paring knife

Yellow sanding sugar

About 2.5 cups of buttercream - Most of it will be dyed yellow, but reserve a couple spoonfuls white, and maybe 1/4 cup each of the yellow and orange. Put the 1/4 cup yellow and orange in frosting bags. I used a #1 tip for the orange and... I can't remember for the yellow. Sorry :) Something a little bigger, but it doesn't matter what style. I just put the white in a plastic baggie and barely snipped off the corner to leave a little hole.

Using a small paring knife, bore out a quarter-sized hole in the middle of each cupcake. I only did half the cupcakes (one of my YW girls can't have citrus) and that little jar of lemon curd perfectly fit 1.5 dozen cupcakes. Buy two jars if you want it in all of them (which you might, because it's DELICIOUS). And what do you do with all those little nuggets you've pulled out? Eat them, of course. Let's not be wasteful.

Next, fill in the holes with lemon curd! I found it was easiest to put the lemon curd in a sandwich baggie and cut off the corner. I tried to spoon the first two and it was just a mess - it left lemon curd on the tops of the cupcakes and I was afraid that would make it harder to ice later.

Smooth yellow icing onto the cupcakes with a knife. Pour the sanding sugar into a shallow bowl. Tip each cupcake upside down into the sugar and twirl it gently to cover the whole top.

Now the fun part! Put two regular-size chocolate chips for eyes. Using the orange icing bag, draw in an upside down triangle for the beak and gently squeeze on the little claws. Using the yellow icing, draw on the wings - I used a motion like I was drawing a sideways heart. Then dot on tiny white spots on the chocolate chips for the eyes. I topped mine off with more sugar on the wings.

Happy Easter!

Oh.... and if you've ever wondered what my kitchen looks like after I'm done baking.....

Oy.