Easter Cupcakes or Google Saved My Buttercream

This was starting to feel like a diet blog. Ugh. Yes, I am still on cleanse train. I made these cupcakes last week, or what I now refer to as "the good old days". These might be the perfect cupcakes for spring. The cake has fresh strawberries, and the buttercream icing, is well, buttercream icing. Leftovers were almost the undoing of the cleanse. If you have never made buttercream icing before, brace yourself. The first word is "butter" for a reason.

This was the first time I made buttercream. Because you are making an emulsion of butter (like whipping cream or making mayo), it can be finnicky. As I found out the hard way. Everything was going smoothly; the sugar dissolved, the egg whites whipped up nicely, and then I started adding the butter. It is very important that your butter is room temperature. I always forget to take my butter out of the fridge when I'm baking, so I softened it in the microwave. I guess it was still too cold, cause my buttercream looked like cottage cheese. Martha Stewart said this would happen partway through, but no amount of mixing on high speed would make my buttercream smooth. Thank God for Google. And one of my favorite blogs The Kitchn. I soaked a tea towel in hot water, wrapped it around the bowl, and whipped at high speed. A buttercream Easter miracle!

Funnily enough, the blog, Wee Eats, that I am linking to for the cupcake recipe, tells the same tale of breaking and then fixing the frosting for the exact same cupcakes. The recipe is from Martha Stewart Cupcakes and rather than writing it out for you here somebody else has already done that for me. Excellent.

Strawberry Cupcake Recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes via Wee Eats  

The strawberry buttercream recipe there is what I wanted to top my cupcakes with but I underestimated the amount of strawberries I would need so I ended up making a plain buttercream.

To decorate the cupcakes with the nest, sprinkle chocolate shavings, or chocolate sprinkles, on top of the icing and press in three Cadbury Mini Eggs each. If not serving right away, refrigerate until 30 minutes before serving.