A simple (but effective!) way to decorate your favourite cupcakes. Make a batch of cupcakes from scratch, whiz up a box mix, or even buy plain undecorated ones from the local bakery, add some icing, a little coconut and a few chocolate eggs and you have a cute centrepiece for your Easter table in no time at all!
Easter Egg Birds Nest Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 12 of your favourite cupcakes
- 1 ½ cups shredded coconut
- 250 grams butter room temperature
- 375 grams 3 cups icing sugar sifted
- 1 tablespoon boiling water
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract or lemon juice
- Small Easter eggs to decorate
Instructions
- To toast the coconut, preheat the oven to 150 °C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Spread the coconut over the tray and bake until it starts to change colour (about 5-7 minutes). Watch carefully so it doesn’t burn and stir it around a couple of times. Set aside to cool.
- To make the buttercream, beat the butter and icing sugar until it is noticeably paler (this takes about 5 minutes with a stand-mixer on high, or 10 minutes with an electric hand-mixer on high).
- Scrape down the sides and add the boiling water and vanilla or lemon juice and beat for another 5 minutes.
- Fill a piping bag with the buttercream and snip off a 1 cm wide opening.
- Starting from the middle, pipe a spiral on the top of your cupcake to completely cover the top. Pipe a ring around the outside to create a nest shape.
- Gently press toasted coconut into the buttercream, covering it completely, and fill the centre of the nest with small eggs.
- Will keep in an airtight container for up to three days.
Photography by Alice Arndell © 2013-2020. All rights reserved. Post may contain affiliate links.
