Easter Basket Cupcakes

This is my video/tutorial on how to make Easter Basket Cupcakes. I merely followed the instructions on the cake mix (I chose a confetti flavor) to bake my cupcakes, hollowed them out, coated them with frosting, added the grass (green colored coconut), added the eggs (jellybeans), and the handle (licorice sticks). Nice and easy! Everything was edible except the cupcake wrappers. I made these for our family's 2012 Easter get-together, and they were a big hit. Enjoy!

 

(THIS VIDEO IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE)

Here are some pictures from the video:

Here's the cake mix I used. You can use absolutely whatever flavor you want, but these ere originally going to be for a bunch of kids, so I used the Party Rainbow Chip flavor for the fun of it. Plus, it had box tops, which I always donate to the school. For me, that's a BIG plus :-D

The instructions were easy. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and like the box says - just add 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and 3 eggs. Mix it all up, set up your cupcake trays and papers (if you want to use them, which I do because it's less messy and easier to manage the cupcakes since you'll have to cover them in frosting), and then pour.

Usually when I make regular cupcakes, I like like pile on the frosting, so I'll only fill the cups to about 1/2 of the way, or 2/3 if I'm adding chocolate chips (which I do to my chocolate cupcakes). However, since I need these cupcakes to be deep and rounded, I filled them pretty much completely to the top so they'll puff up and have enough space to hollow them out.

Because I added so much batter to the cups, this recipe (1 box) only made 12 cupcakes. The directions say that for 24 cupcakes that are 2/3 full, bake for 15 to 20 minutes. With there being so much batter per cupcake, I baked for the full 20 minutes, and they came out PERFECTLY! They were nicely puffed up, and a beautiful golden color.

Then after they cooled off, I took a knife and cut a circle shape into them, and popped out the centers with a spoon. Try not to cut or dig all the way to the bottom. Leave enough space between the bottom and the sides to make a basket shape. All you need is enough space for the coconut grass and some jelly beans.

 Here's the picture where I showed that I had cupcake papers on mine, so I wouldn't need to frost the bottoms of the cupcakes, making them easier to handle, and less time-consuming to decorate. I'm sure other people will be more crafty, though, and go all out, even as to make it look like basket weaving on the cupcakes. If you do, please feel free to comment and show me! I'd love to see these done better than mine  :-D  Frost the tops and the sides of the cupcake that are exposed. I chose white, since this was just a nice and simple design.

Put some coconut into a bowl and use green food coloring to make it look like grass. I just squirted between 5 to 10 drops (whatever you prefer) and then start mixing until the color blends nicely.

Here's what my grass looked like when I was done mixing. Then I put a spoon of the coconut into the hollows of each cupcake. Try not to cover the basket with grass. A little bit here and there should be okay, but too much would cover up your basket top and make it less realistic.

Then I took some jellybeans and laid them on top of the grass. I chose sweet tarts jelly beans, because I assumed we were going to be giving these to Tricity's classmates, but she was sick that whole week... Try to arrange the eggs (jellybeans) so that there's not two of the same colors touching. You want them to be very colorful.

Take long sticks of licorice (I chose red Twizzlers because hardly anyone I know likes black licorice) and cut them with scissors right down the middle. They should now have the decorated edge on the outside, and a hollow part on the inside. Make sure the decorative edge is facing out, and stick them into the sides of your cupcakes like handles, making sure not to dig into the sides of your cupcake papers, and push them down far enough that they don't pop back out of the cupcake.

When you're done, if you did them my way, they should look like this! Very cute! Please tell me what you think, and if you do them better than I did, please share pictures or a video with me so I can get better ideas on how to do my own  :-)

Thanks for watching and checking out my blog!