Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound cream cheese
• 1/2 pound whipped cream
• 1/4 pound white chocolate
• Food coloring (optional, if you don’t want the frosting to be white)

These quantities should be enough for at least one dozen cupcakes, but if you spread it thin, it can be enough for two dozens. It usually depends on how thick you like the frosting to be, so what works for me may not be the same for you. Anyway, after you try the homemade frosting once, you’ll know how many cupcakes you can decorate with such and such quantities.

Method:

In a bowl, mix the cream cheese with the whipped cream. Melt the white chocolate (steaming is my favorite method). Add the melted chocolate to the mix, blend everything well and you’re done. The cream cheese frosting goes very well with fresh fruit and gelatin toppings, for creating refreshing and original cupcake recipes.

Cupcake ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Baking the cupcakes:

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a hole in the mixture and add the wet ingredients: the teaspoon vanilla, the teaspoon vinegar and the melted butter. Now pour in 1 cup water over it all. Mix well.

Spoon the cupcake batter into a lined cupcake tin, making sure to fill the cups only by two thirds.  Bake the cupcakes in the oven at 350 F. They should be done in about 30 minutes, but it would be good if you checked them after 20-25 minutes. Try one with a toothpick – if it comes out clean, then cupcakes are done, you can take them out. There’s no need to buy special Easter liners for these cupcakes, because you’re going to give them the bunny-face frosting, so the cupcake lining won’t be that visible. Just simple, plain liners would be very good.

This bakes 12 cupcakes. The frosting ingredients that follow are also calculated for 12 cupcakes.

Bunny face frosting ingredients:

• White icing
• Shredded coconut
• Pink decorating sugar
• Pink jelly candies
• Blue or green small, round candies
• 24 big marshmallows
• 48 small marshmallows
• One tablet of plain milk chocolate, melted

Method:

Apply the frosting evenly over the cupcake top, then dunk the cupcake into the shredded coconut bowl, for making the fluffy bunny face. For making the bunny ears, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the marshmallows, then shape the pieces with your fingers until they get a rabbit ear shape. You’ll see that the surface resulted from the cut is all sticky. Dunk it into the pink decorating sugar: you’ve just made the nice, pink interior of the bunny ears. Apply the ears on the cupcake, as shown in the video below. A pink jelly bean will make the cute bunny nose. Two blue or green dot candies will make the eyes. Two smaller marshmallows will make the bunny cheeks. The lady in the video then uses black decorating gel to make the eye pupils and pink decorating gel for the bunny whiskers. I like doing those with melted chocolate. I just use a cake decorating syringe, fill it with melted chocolate then make the pupils and the rabbit whiskers. Maybe I’m a little bit conservative, but I tend to avoid using food colorants, decorating gels and other such stuff, because I fear they might be harmful.

Here’s the Easter cupcakes video: