Last-Minute Easter Cupcakes

Aren't they darling? My Last-Minute Easter Cupcake recipe that I came up with at the last minute! Banana-Strawberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting (mud), green coconut (grass) and Easter Peanut M&Ms (eggs). Lovely! And they taste delicious too. My recipe was originally posted on my Thoughtful Eats column at the Woburn Patch. But I thought I'd share the recipe here too.

Ingredients

1-1/4 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/3 cup of sugar
1 ripe banana, chopped
1 egg
1/4 cup of milk
1/4 cup of light oil (canola or extra light olive oil)
seedless strawberry jelly
chocolate frosting
shredded coconut
green food coloring
candy coated chocolates that look like Easter eggs (such as Easter peanut M&Ms)
pastel colored cupcake liners


This recipe makes 9 cupcakes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, add the flour, baking powder and sugar. Stir to mix. In a small bowl, add your chopped banana and take a handheld mixer and blend the banana chunks until smooth. Don't worry if there are a few little chunks in there.

To the banana mixture, add your egg, milk and oil. Stir until combined. Add the wet ingredients and stir into the dry until well incorporated.

In a muffin tin, add 9 cupcake liners. Spoon some batter into the bottom of each cupcake liners. You'll want the bottom to be covered. Make sure you use equal amounts in each cupcake liner. Take another spoon and scoop a small amount of strawberry jelly and add to the center of each cupcake liner on top of the batter. Take the rest of the batter and spoon equal amounts of it over the top of the jelly making sure it's covered.

Put the muffin tin in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into one cupcake comes out clean. Let cool. (Do not attempt to frost these cupcakes while they are hot).

While the cupcakes are cooling, scoop about a cup of shredded coconut and dump into a bowl. Add 3 drops of green food coloring and stir very well with a spoon until all the coconut is green. Don't use more than 3 drops!

Now it's time for the fun part! It's time to decorate. Take a butter knife and spread some mud (chocolate frosting) over the top of each cupcake. Then take 2 or 3 eggs (candy-coated chocolate) and place them on top of the frosting. Then sprinkle some grass (green colored coconut flakes) over the top. It's important to put the candy on before the coconut so it can stick to the frosting and hold. Otherwise they will fall off.

Have a Happy Easter!