Easter chick cupcakes

Name: Easter chick cupcakes
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 32 min
Ingredients: 120 g 1 cup plain / All-purpose flour; 140 g 2/3 cup caster sugar; 1.5 tsp baking powder; A pinch of salt; 40 g 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened; 120 ml milk (whole milk if possible); 1 egg (large); ¼ tsp vanilla extract; 250 g cream cheese; 90 g butter (softened); 250 g icing sugar; 1 tsp vanilla extract; Yellow food colouring; Red sprinkles; Small chocolate drop sprinkles

These cute Easter chick cupcakes are a fun bake for kids to make this Easter. They’re sure to love turning these simple vanilla cupcakes into something a bit special.

Easter bunny cupcakes are one of the easiest, but cutest things you can make with your kids this Easter!

Easter baking with kids can be really fun and these easter chick cupcakes are no exception. There are loads of cute ideas and ways of incorporating fun ideas like Easter bunnies or Easter chicks. We took a simple vanilla cupcake and made them for Easter with the addition of a cute Easter chick on top. So whether it’s these Easter chick cupcakes, their friends the Easter bunny cupcakes or something even simpler like Easter chocolate nests, there are loads of ways of keeping your kids busy in the kitchen this Easter.

How can kids help make these Spring chick cupcakes?

Cupcakes are always an easy bake for kids to help with. Children can help with measuring and mixing all the ingredients together, before spooning them out into the cupcake cases.

Once you’ve made the buttercream frosting, your kids can help add the food colouring to make the right shades for the body, beak and eyes. They can then help to pipe the the frosting onto each cupcake to make each little chick. And if they’ve got a steady hand, they can add the detailed decorations as well.

How long do they keep?

As these cupcakes have a cream cheese frosting, you need to keep them in the fridge where they’ll keep for a day or two. If you want to make them ahead of time or keep them for longer, you can freeze them uniced for a few months. Simply wrap them well in cling film or gladwrap and pop them in a freezer bag. Defrost them fully before icing and serving them.

What can I use instead of self raising flour?

Self raising flour should be easy to find in the supermarket here in the UK, but if you don’t have any, you can swap it for an equal amount of plain or all purpose flour and add an extra one and half tea spoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt.

What is baking spread?

Baking spread is a dairy free alternative to butter – Stork is the most commonly found brand name you’ll find in the UK. It’s great for using in cakes and cupcakes as it makes them nice and light and fluffy (and is cheaper than butter). I prefer the taste of butter in buttercream icing so don’t use baking spread/margarine in that.

Can I make a different flavour of cupcake?

Absolutely. For easiness, we’ve used our favourite easy cupcake recipe but you can use a different flavour if you prefer. Our lemon cupcakes would be great for this, or if you’ve not had enough chocolate this Easter you could use our chocolate cupcakes for the base, although you’d need to use a plain buttercream rather than chocolate so you can make the chicks yellow.

Other easy Easter bakes

If you liked these Easter chick cupcakes check out some of our other easy Easter bakes for kids.

Hot cross buns
Chocolate hot cross buns
Easer bunny cookies
Mini egg cookies
Easter fudge
Easter rocky road
Chocolate nests
Mini Egg cupcakes
Easter bunny cupcakes
Hot cross muffins
Easter cookie bar
Mini Egg cheesecake

Useful equipment

You might need the following baking tools/gadgets to make these Easter chick cupcakes

Digital scales
Mixing bowl
Wooden spoons
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons
Muffin tin
Cupcake cases
Wire rack
Food colouring
Piping nozzle
Piping bag

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Serves: 8
Time: 20 minutes plus 12 minutes baking plus 10 minutes decorating
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

For the cupcakes
150g caster sugar
175g self raising flour
150g baking spread or butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs

For the butter cream frosting
300g icing sugar
150g butter
1-2 tablespoons milk
Food colouring

How to make easter chick cupcakes

Preheat your oven to 170C / 160C Fan / 330F and line a muffin tin with paper cupcake cases. If you can, some nice Easter chick coloured ones like yellow or orange work really well with this bake.

Mix the cupcake ingredients together

Add all the cupcake ingredients to a large mixing bowl or the bowl of free-standing mixer. It doesn’t matter what order you add them, but we find if we stick to the order they’re listed we’re less likely to miss anything out.

Start adding the flour and sugar, then add the butter/baking spread. If you’re using butter make sure it is soft enough for it to mix in well. If it isn’t soft, cut it into a few pieces and pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it (but not long enough to melt it).

Add the baking powder. When you kids are measuring it, make sure they use their finger to level the teaspoon before they add it to make sure they add just the right amount.

Finally, crack the eggs into a small bowl before adding them to your mixing bowl. We never add our eggs straight in just in case any shell goes in. If it does, simply fish it out with a larger piece of shell or a teaspoon – it will stick to that, better than it will your finger.

Give everything a good mix with the k-paddle of your free-standing mixer or a hand held mixer until you have a nice smooth, batter.

Bake the cupcakes

Get your kids to divide the cupcake batter among the cases (you may need to help them make sure they are even). They should be about ¾ full. If you’ve got an ice-cream scoop or a soup spoon they can be great tools to get the batter in the cases without too much mess.

Bake the cupcakes in the oven for 12-15 minutes. They’re ready when they have risen, and turned a nice golden brown colour. You can also check they’re cooked using a metal skewer – poke it in the middle and if it comes out clean, they’re done.

Remove the cupcakes from the oven and leave them to cool in their tray for a few minutes. Then take them out and leave them on a wire rack until they are completely cool.

Make the buttercream frosting.

Get your kids to measure out the butter, icing sugar and milk. Pop them in your free-standing mixer or mixing bowl, and beat them together until the icing becomes nice and fluffy. The longer you leave it (five minutes if you can), the nicer and fluffier the icing will be.

Once you’re happy with the icing, remove a few spoons into two separate small bowls for the eyes and beak. Add some yellow food colouring to the remaining icing in the mixing bowl, and mix it in until it’s the right colour.

Put some red food colouring in one of the small bowls to make the icing for the beak/feet.

Add some black food colouring to the other bowl to make the icing for the eyes. If you find black on it’s own doesn’t make the icing dark enough add a little cocoa powder as well.

Decorate the Easter chick cupcakes

Put the yellow buttercream icing into a piping bag fitted with a large circular nozzle (we used a Wilton 1A nozzle). Pop a food clip at the top end so you don’t have to worry about it coming out the wrong end when you’re piping!

Holding the piping bag straight down, pipe a round dollop of icing into the centre of each cupcake. There’s no need to swirl the piping bag around, simply hold it steady in place to make the round ball for the body. Do the same on top of each body with a smaller dollop of icing to make the chick’s head.

With a smaller bag fitted with the smallest nozzle you have, pipe the red icing onto each chick to make the beak and feet.

Finally, again using a small tip, pipe on tiny dots for the eyes. You need a bit of a steady hand when you add the eyes and beaks/feet so you may need to help your kids do this.

Serve and enjoy!

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