Easter Bunny Mango and Coconut Cupcakes Recipe

It's BF's birthday tomorrow!!!

And it just so happened that his birthday fell on Easter weekend this year, so that means Easter themed cupcakes!

Since it's his birthday, I let BF pick the flavour of the cupcakes and he decided on mango. I saw this idea for Easter bunny cupcakes on the Kraft website and I thought they were too cute so I decided to do something similar. Instead of marshmallow bunnies I used these adorable belgian chocolate bunnies that I found. They are wonderfully detailed with cute little faces. I fell in love as soon as I saw them. Each bunny sits on a bed of grass (just mix 1 tsp water with some green food colouring, throw it in a ziplock bag with some shredded coconut and shake!) and is watching over a couple of the tiniest Easter eggs I've ever seen (Cadbury Micro Mini Eggs).

When they were finished I thought they looked like a little army of bunnies. BF approved.

Here's the recipe:

Mango Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs, separated and at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup mango puree (it comes in a can)
1 mango, peeled and diced finely

Recipe makes about 3 dozen cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line muffin tins.

In a large bowl, cream butter on medium speed for about a minute. Slowly pour in sugar and beat for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix to combine. Add yolks, two at a time, beating for a full minute after each addition.

In a second bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed mixture in three additions, alternating with the mango puree.

In a third bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer on high until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into the batter.

Fold in diced mango pieces. Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full and bake for 22 to 25 minutes until tests done with a toothpick. Allow to cool before frosting.

I topped these cupcakes with coconut buttercream, the recipe for which I previously posted here.