By marian 26 Comments
Just in the nick of time for Easter, I’ve got a new recipe to share with you.
Being pressed for time, this recipe is semi-homemade with a bit of a twist (details in the recipe below). You’ll notice the color of the cupcakes is a bit darker on the brown liners above, as I baked them in extra large cupcake liners, and needed to bake them a bit longer than the smaller ones below. Both turned out delightfully lemony with a soft and fluffy textured cupcake.
For my Easter dessert table, I wanted to include some regular sized bunny cookie pops (you can find the mini cookie pops in this post here), hence the extra large brown cupcake liners, which you can find here
.
I topped the lemon cupcake with vanilla buttercream and CakeMate Rainbow rounds for a little extra whimsy.
The cookie pops are gingerbread with royal icing (recipes below).The bunny tails and ears have fine white sanding sugar sprinkled on them (while the icing was wet). You can find the sanding sugarhere
.
If you’d like to make these too, the decorating technique is quite simple. You can find find some basic decoratingvideos here,and a post on how to make cookie pops here.
Some fun news for you… If you’re preparing your favorite Easter recipes this weekend, you might want to take some photographs of what you make (sweet or savoury), and enter this contest for a chance to take home a Le Creuset cookware set! McCormick is on the hunt for flavourful Easter recipes and is hosting the Flavour Hunt contest. Your entry will be voted on by the community and a panel of chefs. You can find out more details about the contest here, see the current entries here, and can find the contest formhere. This contest is only for Canadian residents; sorry my other sweet readers!Although this post is sponsored by McCormick, all opinions are my own.
I haven’t been able to blog much this year so far, I recently realized it’s Sweetopia’s 6th anniversary (this past February). Thanks so much for visiting me here!
Happy decorating!
Marian
Print Recipe
Lemon Cupcake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 box Betty Crocker Lemon Cake Mix
- 1 box Jello Instant Vanilla Pudding, dry or 3.4 oz
- 1 cup water
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat the cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil and eggs on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until well blended. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again until all ingredients are well incorporated.
Line 2 cupcake pans with liners. Using an ice cream scoop or ¼ measuring cup, add one scoop of batter into each cupcake liner.
Bake the cupcakes for 15-20 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let them cool for at least 15 minutes before removing them from the tray.
Allow cupcakes to cool completely and decorate!
Notes
Yield:Approx. 24 cupcakes
Print Recipe
Gingerbread Cut Out Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 800 g all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder *omit if you don't want cookies to spread/rise
- 250 g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup molasses
- 3 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix butter and brown sugar on medium speed until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and spatula as needed.
Mix in eggs, one at a time, and then molasses. Reduce speed to low. Scrape down bowl as needed.
Sift together flour, spices and salt and add to bowl; mix on low until just combined. Note that you would sift in the baking powder here as well, if you aren't concerned about the cookies spreading. Even environment and ingredients used affect baking, so if your dough is a bit sticky add flour until it's soft to the touch but doesn't stick to your fingers.
Roll dough out between parchment or the Dough E-Z mat, and let it rest by refrigerating until cold, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut out cookie shapes and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper, approximately 2 inches apart, and re-roll out dough and cut shapes as needed. Refrigerate until firm; at least 15 minutes to 1 hour.
Bake cookies until lightly golden; 10 to 14 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of the cookie. Let cool on sheets on wire racks and serve as is or decorate withroyal icing.
Notes
Yield:Approx. 30 cookies (depending on size and shape)
Royal Icing Recipe can be found here.
