These adorable lemon chick cupcakes are the perfect Easter cupcake idea! Soft vanilla cupcake is topped with an easy lemon buttercream, piped into an easy chick shape!
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✏️ Why you'll love this recipe
When it comes to Easter desserts and Easter baking ideas, for me, it’s the cuter the better! And what could be cuter than these little baby chick cupcakes, all bright yellow with fluffy little wings?
I like it when desserts match their flavours, so for a yellow chick, I used a lemon-flavoured frosting. That way, you only need to add a bit of food colouring to get bright and fun colours.
These frosted chick cupcakes are basically made of two big blobs of yellow American-style buttercream for the body and head, then two small frosting blobs for wings and a few pieces of fondant icing rolled into eyes, feet and a beak for an Easter topper.
Easter is one of my favourite times of the year, and these cute Easter chick cupcakes are the perfect sweet Spring treat. These easy Easter cupcakes are the perfect bake for an Easter dessert or to enjoy at a Spring party! Kids will love these colourful and cute cupcakes.
🥘 Ingredients
This lemon chick cupcake recipe calls for the following ingredients:
Vanilla cupcakes
- Unsalted butter: softened to room temperature for ease of mixing.
- White sugar: finely granulated white sugar e.g. caster sugar.
- Eggs
- Vanilla extract: use paste or extract over essence for best flavour.
- Vegetable oil: or other neutral-flavoured oil.
- Plain all-purpose flour: sieve for a smooth cupcake cake batter.
- Baking powder: always check the expiry date before use or the cupcakes won’t rise.
- Milk: use full-fat or semi-skimmed.
Lemon buttercream
- Unsalted butter: room temp. for ease of beating.
- Powdered icing sugar (confectioners’ sugar): sieve for a smooth frosting.
- Lemon’s zest
- Lemon juice
- Salt (optional)
- Yellow food coloring (optional)
Chick decorations
- Black fondant / modelling icing
- Orange fondant / modelling icing
See the recipe card for quantities.
Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.
♻️ Substitutions / Variations
Ingredient substitutions
If you like a lot of lemon flavour, you can also add 1 lemon’s zest to the vanilla cupcake.
I usually use plain flour in this cupcake recipe, but alternatively, you can swap plain flour for self-raising flour of the same quantity (170g for a standard-sized batch) and reduce the baking powder by 1 ½ tsp.
Equipment substitutions
For the buttercream frosting for these baby chick cupcakes, I use a piping bag open circle piping nozzle for the head and body, then an open star piping nozzle for the wings. This 3-piece set from Wilton has the ones I use most often for my cupcakes.
Alternatively, if you don’t have a piping bag or a round open nozzle, you can use a plastic sandwich / freezer bag with the corner cut off instead. If you've got no open star nozzles, you can use this method to blob on some wings too!
Design variations
I think these little Easter yellow chicks look adorable as Easter cupcake toppers. However, I also realised that if you flattened the beak a little too much, they actually look like little ducklings! You can turn these cupcakes into duckling cupcakes by flatting the beak to make it wide and also flattening the feet to give the impression of webbed feet instead.
📖 Method
Vanilla cupcakes:
- Preheat oven: 190oC / 170oC (fan) / Gas Mark 5 / 375oF
- For the sponges, cream together the butter and sugar, either using a spatula, electric hand mixer or stand mixer.
- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until whisked up nice and fluffy.
- Gradually add the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar, and slowly mix together.
- Sieve in the flour and baking powder, folding in gently until just combined.
- Add the milk and vanilla extract, stirring in until only the liquid has only just incorporated.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the cupcake cases and bake for 15-20mins until risen, springy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack while you make the buttercream.
Lemon buttercream:
- Beat the butter (either by hand, using an electric mixer or stand mixer) until pale, light and fluffy. This could take several minutes.
- Sieve half of the icing sugar into the butter and beat until combined, then repeat this with the remaining half of the icing sugar.
- Add in the salt, lemon zest and mixing until smooth.
- Stir in the yellow food colouring one drop at a time until you get the desired colour.
Chick assembly and decoration:
- Once the cupcakes have cooled fully, add your lemon buttercream to a piping bag fitted with an open round nozzle. Hold your nozzle a few cm (an inch) above the top of your cupcake, and squeeze your piping bag hard for several seconds and lift up very slightly so you get one large blob of frosting.
- Lift your nozzle a few more cm (an inch) up and make a smaller frosting blob for the head by squeezing softer and lifting up quicker.
- Change your nozzle to an open star piping tip if you have one, if not you can stick with the current tip and pipe a blob of frosting on each side of the body to make little wings.
- Repeat the above steps until you have frosted each cupcake with a chick body, head and wings.
- Roll two small balls of black fondant icing to make eyes for your chick and press them into the head.
- Roll two small pieces of orange fondant icing into thin logs, roughly a thumb's length long. Cut one log in half for the two legs and cut the other into four pieces (half and half again). Pinch one end of each of these four short pieces and two leg pieces into a pointy tip.
- For each of the four short pieces, press the non-pointy end onto the leg piece roughly 1-2 cm (½ inch) down from the pointy end. You should use two short pieces for each leg to effectively create three toes on each leg.
- Press the non-foot end of each leg into the base of the chicks on your cupcake, leaving a small gap between them.
- Make a small beak using more orange fondant, rolling a very small piece into a log shape and pinching one end into a pointed tip. Press the non-pointed end into the chick’s face below the eyes.
- Repeat the above fondant steps until you have completed the chick decorations for each of your cupcakes, then enjoy!
💭 Top tips
- For soft and fluffy lemon chick cupcakes, try not to overmix your cake batter once you’ve added the baking powder.
- Your vanilla cupcakes are cooked once they’re golden, risen and springy to the touch. An inserted toothpick or skewer should also come out clean from the middle.
- Use good quality sturdy baking cases or baking cups, as sometimes the cheap ones can peel over time due to the moisture in your chick cupcakes.
- When pouring your cupcake batter into the cupcake liners you only need to fill each of your cupcake cases to roughly ⅔ full.
- For creamy lemon buttercream frosting, beat your butter until it’s light and fluffy. This should take several minutes using a stand / electric mixer.
- Only add the food colouring one drop at a time and note that your colour will develop and strengthen over time. This means that you should stop adding more colouring a shade lighter than you’d like your final colour to be. For the buttercream frosting chick, I use only 1-2 drops of yellow gel food colouring.
- Using fondant (modelling) icing can be fiddly. You can use small tools to help such as toothpicks and small knives.
- It’s also a good idea to warm up your fondant in your hands a little before you start so that it’s easier to manipulate. Otherwise, it can crack and crumble rather than mould smoothly.
❔ Recipe FAQs
Your lemon chick cupcakes should last for up 4 days stored in an airtight container at room temperature. If it’s hot where you live, store your cupcakes in the fridge instead.
Yes! You can freeze your frosted lemon chick cupcakes, without the fondant eyes and beak, in an airtight container or wrapped in cling film and then foil for up to 3 months. Defrost, add the eyes and beak, then enjoy!
No, cake flour is actually different to both plain flour and self-raising flour. It has a different composition and your cake will have a different consistency if you use it.
Swap the plain all-purpose flour for a gluten-free 1:1 blend.
🧁 Other goodies
Looking for some more easy desserts?
If you’re looking for more great Easter baking ideas, check out these tasty Easter treats:
- Hot cross bun muffins – a fun twist on the traditional Easter food. They’re great for an Easter brunch!
- Easter bunny chocolate malt cupcakes - great for your next Easter or Spring party!
- Chocolate bunny mud cake - an easy Easter chocolate cake perfect for sharing!
- Easter chocolate nest cakes - perfect for an easy Easter treat that the kids will love!
- Mini egg blondies - for all the Cadbury's mini eggs fans!
- Creme egg blondies - soft, chewy blondie bars topped with Cadbury's creme eggs.
For more great Easter ideas, check out these tasty Easter bunny cake ideas or the full collection of easy Easter desserts.
Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!
Or if you’d like to hear about our latest recipes, why not subscribe to our newsletter?
📖 Recipe
Lemon Chick Cupcakes
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Equipment
Ingredients
Vanilla cupcakes:
- 170 g (¾ cups) unsalted butter room temp.
- 170 g (¾ cups) white sugar finely granulated e.g. caster
- 3 eggs
- 170 g (1 ⅓ cups) plain all-purpose flour see notes for self-raising flour swap
- 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoon milk whole or semi-skimmed
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil or canola or sunflower oil
Lemon buttercream:
- 225 g (1 cups) unsalted butter room temp.
- 450 g (3 ¾ cups) powdered icing sugar
- 1 lemon’s juice
- ½ lemon’s zest
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- yellow food colouring
Chick decorations:
- Black fondant modelling icing
- Orange fondant modelling icing
Instructions
Vanilla cupcakes:
- Preheat oven: 190oC / 170oC (fan) / Gas Mark 5 / 375oF
- For the sponges, cream together the butter and sugar, either using a spatula, electric hand mixer or stand mixer.
- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until whisked up nice and fluffy.
- Gradually add the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar, and slowly mix together.
- Sieve in the flour and baking powder, folding in gently until just combined.
- Add the milk and vanilla extract, stirring in until only the liquid has only just incorporated.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the cupcake cases and bake for 15-20mins until risen, springy to the touch and skewer comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack while you make the buttercream.
Lemon buttercream:
- Beat the butter (either by hand, using an electric mixer or stand mixer) until pale, light and fluffy. This could take several minutes.
- Sieve half of the icing sugar into the butter and beat until combined, then repeat this with the remaining half of icing sugar.
- Add in the salt, lemon zest and mixing until smooth.
- Stir in the yellow food colouring one drop at a time until you get the desired colour.
Chick assembly and decoration:
- Once the cupcakes have cooled fully, add your lemon buttercream to a piping bag fitted with an open round nozzle. Hold your nozzle a few cm (an inch) above the top of your cupcake, and squeeze your piping bag hard for several seconds and lift up very slightly so you get one large blob of frosting.
- Lift your nozzle a few more cm (an inch) up and make a smaller frosting blob for the head by squeezing softer and lifting up quicker.
- Change your nozzle to an open star piping tip if you have one, if not you can stick with the current tip and pipe a blob of frosting on each side of the body to make little wings.
- Repeat the above steps until you have frosted each cupcake with a chick body, head and wings.
- Roll two small balls of black fondant icing to make eyes for your chick and press them into the head.
- Roll two small pieces of orange fondant icing into thin logs, roughly a thumb's length long. Cut one log in half for the two legs and cut the other into four pieces (half and half again). Pinch one end of each of these four short pieces and two leg pieces into a pointy tip.
- For each of the four short pieces, press the non-pointy end onto the leg piece roughly 1-2 cm (½ inch) down from the pointy end. You should use two short pieces for each leg to effectively create three toes on each leg.
- Press the non-foot end of each leg into the base of the chicks on your cupcake, leaving a small gap between them.
- Make a small beak using more orange fondant, rolling a very small piece into a log shape and pinching one end into a pointed tip. Press the non-pointed end into the chick’s face below the eyes.
- Repeat the above fondant steps until you have completed the chick decorations for each of your cupcakes, then enjoy!
Notes
- Your cupcakes are cooked once they’re golden, risen and springy to the touch. An inserted toothpick or skewer should also come out clean from the middle.
- Warm your fondant in your hands a little before you start so that it’s easier to shape.
- Use a gel yellow food colouring for your frosting and add one drop at a time.
- Swap your plain flour for self-raising flour and reduce the baking powder to only 1 tsp.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate based on an online nutritional calculator, actual values may vary.
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