Spring Flower Cupcakes

Hey again! It’s Chelsea back from Chelsea’s Messy Apron. Can you believe Easter is this Sunday? April has just flown by for me, I can’t believe it’s already Easter this Sunday. I have some incredibly simple Easter cupcakes in case you need a last minute dessert for this weekend! The great thing about these cupcakes though, is they are perfect for all of Spring and would even make a great Mother’s Day treat. Plus, they require minimal ingredients to decorate – no fancy icing bags or tips needed!

For these cupcakes I used a cake mix and doctored it up a bit. That’s my favorite way to do cakes or cupcakes. It’s simple, but the cake still tastes rich and dense. I use a cake mix that already has pudding mix in it and then add an additional pudding mix. The double pudding makes for some super dense and fudgy cupcakes. I also add in some sour cream and Greek yogurt to the mix which adds to the density of the cake. A couple extra eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and some buttermilk and the cake is ready to go into the oven. A lot of the times I’ll use a substitute for buttermilk. I hate buying a whole container to just throw it away if it goes bad and I don’t use it all. All you do is get a scant cup of milk (I like to use 2% because of the creaminess) and add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice. I prefer vinegar, but both will work. Stir together and allow to sit for 5-7 minutes before adding to the mixture.

Once these cupcakes are baked and cooled, it’s time to decorate! I frosted each cupcake with dyed cream cheese frosting. You can make your own frosting, but I wanted to keep these simple so I just used it from a store-bought tub. Slather on the frosting and then immediately top with 1-2 tablespoons of dyed coconut. Dying coconut is super simple – just stir around the coconut with a few drops of food dye until the color you desire is reached. Sometimes I will knead the coconut and dye with my hand if I want it to really pick up the color. But, be warned, your hand will be dyed too! Finally, arrange the “flowers” by frosting the bottom of peanut M&M’s (or another similar candy) and pressing them in a flower form on to the cupcake. And there you go – super simple, last minute cupcakes for Easter, or Mother’s Day! Enjoy 🙂

All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.