Last winter when Kate posted her darling Candy Penguin Cupcakes, my favorite part were the cute little beaks. I started thinking about what other sorts of animals you could make with beaks like that (not that there’s tons of choices) and remembered doing these cute little chickies (auto spell-check really wants me to write “sickies” right there…) when I was a kid. (Okay, I swear I’m done writing in parenthesis now.) I sort of have a love-hate relationship with fancy cupcakes. They’re so fun to look at, but some of them are SO labor intensive that when you’re all finished creating your little pieces of art it almost hurts to see people bite into them. So I LOVE projects like this that literally take an extra 2 minutes of your time, but look totally adorable.
The other great thing is that you don’t have to search high and low for specific hard-to-find candies. (If you’ve done a lot of themed cupcakes, you know what I’m talking about…) I grab a tube of mini M&M’s by the check stand at the grocery store. You can check the baking isle too and see if they have the bags near the chocolate chips. The other thing you’ll need is something orange and squishy, like Starburst, or those orange Tootsie Rolls. Laffy Taffy, Airheads, etc. would work too. I noticed my WinCo store sells the orange tootsies in the bulk section right now so I just bought 4 or 5, which totally beats having to buy one of those giant bags full of a few orange ones and then a bunch of the non desirable tootsie roll flavors. You know, like the normal ones. Does anyone even eat those things?
If you’re using Starburst, one pack should be plenty. Unless you get a freak pack with only one orange. You could easily use the yellows too, so you should be good with one pack. You can 12 beaks out of just 2 starburst. Just use a knife to cut the candy into small pieces and use your hands to mold a little triangle shape.
For the top of the cupcakes you’ll need some tinted coconut. Just drop 2 or 3 drops of liquid food coloring into the coconut and stir with a fork.
At first it just looks weird and all of the color clumps together, but keep on stirring and I promise it will turn a lovely shade of baby-chick yellow. I’m also sure someone in the comments will tell me to just put the coconut in a ziplock bag and shake, but I think it’s much easier to distribute the color with a fork.
Then just grab a cupcake and spread on some frosting. I tinted my frosting a pale yellow so it would blend in with the coconut.
Cover the top with coconut, and place your little eyes and beaks on. See? Instant cuteness.
{Easy} Spring Chick Cupcakes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 12 cupcakes
Description
These sweet little chicks are a fun addition to any springtime spread and, as an added bonus, they only take a few minutes!
Ingredients
12 cupcakes
frosting of your choice (we love this one)
3/4 C shredded coconut
2–3 drops yellow food coloring
mini M&M’s
orange starburst, tootsie rolls, or other soft moldable candy
Instructions
Mix coconut and food coloring with a fork until color is evenly distributed. Cut orange candy into small pieces and mold into beak shapes. Frost cupcakes (tint frosting yellow if desired) and cover with coconut. Place 2 M&M’s on for eyes and a candy beak.
Questions & Reviews
I made these last night for YW this evening. I couldn’t find Mini M&Ms (no idea why – probably because I was *looking* for them), so I used mini chocolate chips instead. And I decided to cut candy orange slices instead of Starburst or Tootsie Rolls for the beaks. They came out so cute! My husband couldn’t resist helping me with them – that’s how cute they are! Thanks, ladies, for such an adorable and easy recipe!
My granddaughter and I made these today. So fun to have a food craft that is easy…even for an 8 year old. Now I love your website and I’ll be back.
I made these for my son’s class this morning. (They were doing a project where they had to take care of, and design a house for a little puff chicken, and I made these for presentation day.) They turned out amazing! Thank you so much!! The kids all loved them. I made a few with just the lightly tinted yellow frosting and no coconut, and while not as cute, they actually still looked like chicks.
crap…somehow I ended up commenting on the wrong article…sorry!
I too am not super crafty. My mom ‘quit’ attempting to teach me how to crochet, she literally was like…I quit and refused to even discuss granny squares again! I love the idea, but I’m pretty sure my husband would walk past the wreath and umm…eat a peep. It wouldn’t take long before I had no peeps left.
We made these for FHE, adorable. I am a sucker for chicks, so these were screaming my name when I saw them. Thanks for a simple and fun idea!!
These are way cute. Hopefully I’m not just being blind, but I can’t find the search bar on your site anymore, do you still have it and where is it at?
Thanks!
Search is the second tab on the pink bar on the top right. Connect is first then the next tab is search.
I was just about to buy another cookbook for my sister, but can’t seem to find it on Amazon.com is it still offered on the site, or is it just sold out?
My 6 yo was with me when I saw this yesterday, and since he was in charge of the treat for FHE, we had these last night. They are very cute and very easy (easy is an FHE requirement for me!!). Thanks!
This is amazing !!! i was thinking of a cheap way of decorating the house to make it more easter-like… i am just gonna make a bunch of these and put em all over the house !!!
Sarah!
You found my blog….Check it out again. I made something for Ben for his birthday that I think your boys would love! Especially since they love the dinosaur eggs! Yes we need to chat. Want to send me your email address? Or I think that mine might be attached to this note. Oh, these are super cute cupcakes! Will definitely have to make these 🙂
THANK YOU THANK YOU for posting a cake/cupcake/holiday recipe that doesn’t take so much work. I love looking at all the super-uber-ultra creative and intricate cakes and desserts out there, but that doesn’t mean I want to make them. This, on the the other hand, I can totally do! And I showed my kids the picture and they thought they were adorable, plus they can help with them since they are not too difficult!
I LOVE this!
I have the same question about using coconut that Jennifer McCormick did. Is there any other option? Mine is not b/c of a school reason. I just don’t care for coconut. 🙂
I tried these with yellow frosting and they were super cute. You could probably also use a star tip (I’m not sure if that is the right term) to frost the cupcakes and it would look more like “feathers”. I just didn’t have the drive to do that at the time, but I think I will try that next time since my kids are not coconut fans. Hope this helps!
Jennifer… if you use a leaf tip and pull out a little it will actually recreate feathers 😉
I LOVE how cute and simple these are! And yes I know what you are talking about with the fancy ones! Excellent idea thanks so much!!
These are adorable and sound so easy. Our family had a blast trying your April Fools day cupcakes. We just might have to try these out too!
These are adorable!
My sister and I were at Winco on Saturday. We picked through the gumballs because we needed only red, white and blue gumballs. I can just see you picking through the mini M&M’s for the brown ones!
I made the elephant, monkey, penguin and lion cupcakes from a certain cupcake book (hmm, I wonder which one?) last year for my granddaughter’s third birthday, then several of the dog cupcakes for my grandson’s second birthday. They took forever and exactly what you said- when they started getting eaten I almost wanted to smack them out of the people’s hands!
(P.S. We don’t mind your parenthesis usage.) 🙂
I made these for a barnyard theme party for my little boy last year. But I didn’t think about making them for Easter—great idea! Good candy suggestions for the beak, too!
Every time we see my grandpa he asks us what the magic word is. If we tell him he gives us tootsie roll, the regular old chocolate kind. No one eats them; we just leave them on a table in his house to find later. The other flavors of tootsie rolls would be great though. Also, the cupcakes are super cute 🙂
I see a snowman variation for winter… bigger orange for a carrot nose and if we want raisins for the eyes?? Maybe chocolate covered raisins? Surely they make good coal!
I made these for my son’s farm birthday last year!! They were really easy and turned out soo cute:)!!
My family has a traditions Easter cake – simply white or yellow cake with a vanilla pudding/crushed pineapple frosting that is naturally a pale yellow color and looks kind of downy. I’m thinking it would work wonderfully with these, and how cute would they be for an Easter Dinner centerpiece?? Darling idea, thanks for posting!
vanilla pudding/crushed pineapple frosting???? Please share the recipe, it sounds sooooooo yummy!
Those are adorable. I wish my family enjoyed coconut!! I have a random question. I am looking for a yummy hot pastrami sandwich recipe for my husband’s birthday this Thurs. I told him I have no idea where to get a good one, so I thought that I would try you guys. Let me know if you have one. Thanks!
hmm….. do you think these would be just as cute without the coconut and just tinting the icing yellow? these would be great for my son’s birthday cupcakes (for school) this Friday …… granted it’s not very boyish or cool but it’s springy!! 🙂
I ask because no treenuts or peanuts in the classroom and some consider coconut a tree nut
Cute cupcakes! I love using coconut but wished my kids liked it more. I end up eating everything myself 🙂
These are so easy and so cute! I feel the same way about cake decorating. I hate when I spend tons of time and energy decorating a cake, for people to look at it only a few minutes before devouring my beautiful cake.
CRAZY CUTE! I can totally see myself getting stuck with one of the freak packs with one orange. Isn’t that just how life goes? haha! I love your blog! 🙂
The mini M&Ms are in Winco’s bulk section too if you don’t want to buy a whole tube, or if you want to just pick out one color or not eat the rest of the tube. I like the mini m&ms for cookies.
ooh, are they really? That’s good to know- I use those little ones a lot for baking projects but I only ever need one color!
Hee hee! These are SO darling! Thanks for posting something easy enough for me to make. 🙂