The other day I read about Julia's Easter Cake Bake challenge and decided that it would be a great theme for this week's baking project. I'd also been thinking about making a lemon cake using lemonade concentrate (like these cookies that PartySugar made a few weeks ago) and thought that lemonade and Easter seemed like a good match. So I headed to my kitchen and started brainstorming - I took a bunch of different cake recipes (along with some tips I've picked up along the way) and came up with a pretty decent lemonade cupcake (Julia's challenge originally said cake, but something about the bite size cupcakes seemed more fun). The cake itself was a bit too sweet and over crumbly, and I forgot to sift my powdered sugar so the frosting was a bit lumpy. However, the coconut "grass" hid the frosting, and the textures all seemed to work well together.

I'm excited to have created another original recipe that mostly worked, but I'm waaay excited about how the decorations turned out. Somehow I got it stuck in my mind that coconut dyed green would look really cute as grass, and (here I go: toot toot!) I think it is! To check out my recipe, and see more up close photos (I like the one of them all lined up in a row), read more

Easter Lemonade Cupcakes
From YumSugar

These cupcakes are really sweet, I would maybe cut out 1/4-1/2 cups of sugar, depending on how sweet the lemonade concentrate is. Also, the cake is quite crumbly, like a muffin - I would consider adding another egg to the mixture.

3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp lemonade concentrate
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
lemonade frosting (see recipe below)
1 1/2 - 2 cups sweetened coconut flake
green food coloring
48 chocolate candy eggs

This recipe makes 24 cupcakes.

• Preheat oven to 325F
• Sift flour, salt, baking soda and powder together - set aside.
• In mixer cream butter until smooth, add sugar, cream together.
• Once creamed add in lemonade concentrate.
• Slowly mix in one egg at a time.
• Add in flour mixture 1/3 at a time.
• When flour is thoroughly mixed, mix in milk. Batter will be slightly lumpy, but should be smooth (think pancake batter).
• Divide batter evenly into lined muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.
• Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack until completely cooled.
• While cupcakes are cooling mix coconut with a few drops of food coloring until desired color is achieved.
• Once cupcakes are cooled, frost with lemonade frosting, and coat with coconut. Place candy onto the cupcakes and top with bunny toothpicks (I got mine at safeway).

Lemonade Frosting
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp lemonade concentrate

In mixer cream butter, slowly add in sugar and mix until blended. Mix in lemonade concentrate. Add more powdered sugar as needed.

Print recipe with images | without images