Easter Cupcakes!

Mini rainbow swirled cupcakes

I went home this weekend for Easter and used the opportunity (and available double oven) to bake somethings I've been wanting to try and some old favorites. One of my friends gave up cupcakes for Lent and I've been torturing her with pictures of all these cupcakes on my blogs.

Middle Tier - rainbow, lemon w/ lemon and mini rainbow

When it came time to break her cupcake ban, she knew exactly what kind she wanted - the rainbow, so those were on the must-bake list. I had also been looking at pictures of cupcake bouquets all week, and knew those would be good to give out to some family friends. Additionally, I've recently gotten some cake orders, and being as it's been a while since I've baked an actual cake, I figured it would be wise not to let the practice round wait until the day the order was due. That's going to be a whole separate post.

Bottom Tier - lemon w/ lemon frosting, vanilla minis, coconut

I made the rainbow first, setting aside a few plain white ones to make coconut-covered cupcakes for my mom. Lauren was a huge help with the rainbow, and I think she's even come up with a new technique to make them more tie dye than rainbow. I'll have to try it on the bigger ones in the future.


The cupcake bouquets were pretty awesome. I had seen them done by other people on a couple blogs, and they looked pretty difficult. While they were tricky, they weren't impossible. I decided to go with mini cupcakes. I love mini cupcakes, they're so cute, and on the bouquet they were even better. From every batter, I made a batch of minis and set these aside for the bouquets.



I piped frosting on the cupcakes so that they resembled flowers. Years ago, my mom and I took Wilton Course 1 at Michael's craft store, so I have some piped flower background, but it takes a few to practice on before I get the hang of it. While everyone else was dying Easter eggs, I was piping all these cupcakes.


These flower pots were on sale at Michael's this week for only 49 cents! In them, I fit half a styrofoam ball that would serve as the base for the cupcakes. The cupcakes are anchored into the styrofoam using toothpicks.


Everyone who was the recipient of one of these bouquets loved them. I really think they would be adorable as centerpieces on tables for a bridal shower or other event. They can also be done with more and larger cupcakes. I'm looking forward to experimenting with these in the future.