Culinary Column: Homemade Easter Cupcakes

A Sweet Treat Fit for Any Season

Callie K.|April 19, 2022

 

Happy Easter and welcome to the Culinary Column. With a whole week of celebration underway, I bring you a treat that everyone will enjoy. My completely homemade carrot cake cupcakes are perfect for the spring season. These cupcakes consist of a homemade carrot cake base and cream cheese frosting piped into the shape of a chick. What’s not to love? Since this was my first time making such a large batch of completely homemade cupcakes, I faced some troubles along the way. However, I kept baking. When your cupcakes don’t turn out as planned, it’s important to note that it takes years of baking to perfect a recipe. I got the recipe for the cake and frosting from two separate websites and altered both of them to my baking needs. Enjoy the recipe, and happy baking!

 

Ingredients:

 

Carrot Cake:

  • Four Eggs
  • Two cups of all-purpose flour
  • Two teaspoons of baking powder
  • One teaspoon of baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon of salt
  • Two teaspoons of ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon if ground nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon of ground ginger
  • ¾ cup of vegetable oil
  • ½ cup of unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 cup of granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup of packed light brown sugar
  • Two teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • Three cups of finely grated carrots
  • 24-30 paper muffin cups

 

Cream Cheese Frosting:

  • 16 ounces of block cream cheese
  • One cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
  • Six cups of confectioners sugar (add up to ¼ if needed)
  • Two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
  • ¼ teaspoon of salt
  • Yellow food coloring
  • Orange food coloring
  • Black food coloring
  • Three piping bags, you can also use Ziploc bags and cut of the tip to your desired size
  • If using piping bags, you’ll need two small frosting tips and one large frosting tip

 

Instructions:

Carrot Cake Cupcakes:

  1. For the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg, set aside.
  3. In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together granulated sugar and brown sugar, then add eggs and using an electric hand mixer, blend mixture on low speed 30 seconds, until slightly pale. 
  4. Pour in applesauce and vanilla extract. 
  5. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly pour in vegetable oil and mix until combined, then mix 20 seconds longer. 
  6. Mix in half of the dry ingredients, then pour the shredded carrots into the bowl with the remaining flour mixture and toss in flour mixture to coat carrots.
  7. Pour carrot mixture into the batter and blend until evenly combined.
  8. Pour batter into paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup about 3/4 full. 
  9. Bake in a preheated oven until the toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean, about 19 – 21 minutes. 
  10. Cool in muffin tin several minutes then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

 

Cream Cheese Frosting:

  1. In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer to beat the cream cheese and butter together on high speed until smooth and creamy. 
  2. Add 3 cups of confectioners’ sugar, the vanilla, and salt. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then switch to high speed and beat for 2 minutes. 
  3. To thicken the frosting, add the extra ½ cup of confectioners sugar.
  4. To thin out the frosting, simply add milk in increments of one tablespoon at a time.
  5. Separate a cup of frosting for the feet, a ½ cup of frosting for the eyes, and keep the rest in the large mixing bowl.
  6. Color your feet with orange food coloring and whisk. Color the eyes with black food coloring. Color the rest of the froting light yellow for the chicken body and head.
  7. Spoon your colored frosting into separate piping bags, using a frosting tip for each if desired.
  8. To frost the cupcakes, first pipe a dollop of yellow frosting as the base.
  9. Next, pipe a smaller dollop on top of the base; chill your cupcakes in the freezer for roughly twenty minutes to solidify your frosting.
  10. Remove the cupcakes from the freezer and pipe two small dots for the eyes.
  11. The next step is to pipe a nose in orange frosting in the center of the dollop as shown in the reference image.
  12. Use the same orange frosting to pipe the feet of the chick, use the reference image for clarification.
  13. Pop your cupcakes into the freezer for about 30 minutes to solidify them.
  14. Once your cupcakes are taken out of the freezer, enjoy with friends and family.

I had a blast decorating my cupcakes and sharing them with my friends. I ran into trouble when it came to frosting my treats, so I suggest you test out your frosting tips before putting all of your frosting into a bag with the wrong tip. When I completed the cupcakes and shared them with my friends, I knew the hours of work trying to fix my mistakes was worth it. I wish you a fantastic Easter, and good luck baking.

 

Bibliography:

Reference Picture (what I tried to make)    ———–>

Thank you for reading this article! It means a lot to The Emerald Press. If you have any suggestions, comments, or concerns: feel free to comment using the attachment to the right. I wish you an amazing day, and a wonderful holiday.