Easter Bird’s Nest Cupcakes

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These cute Easter Bird’s Nest Cupcakes will brighten any spring or Easter celebration!  Top your favorite cupcakes with delicious buttercream nests, then fill them with festive Easter candy eggs and chicks.

🪺 Adorable Bird’s Nest Cupcakes: An Easy Easter Dessert

Bird’s nest treats are a classic Easter dessert, and for good reason. Spring is a time for celebrating new beginnings, and a bird’s nest with soon-to-hatch eggs is the perfect symbol of that.

We love all kinds of bird’s nest desserts around here — check out this reader-favorite Easter Nest Cake, or these super-easy no-bake Chocolate Easter Nest Cookies! So it was only natural that we add a cupcake version as well.

These Bird’s Nest Easter Cupcakes are an easy, semi-homemade recipe that is sure to be a hit with both kids and adults. They’re easy to make, and you can customize them in a variety of ways to fit your taste preferences.

Can’t get enough Easter cupcakes? Our full list of Easter dessert recipes has lots of fun cupcakes that are perfect for any spring celebration. Try our Bunny Butt Cupcakes, Baby Chick Cupcakes, Easter Basket Cupcakes, Easter Bunny Cupcakes, and Double Chocolate Easter Cupcakes.

🧾 What You’ll Need

Ingredients

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you gather the supplies to make these cupcakes. (Links are affiliate links and I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.)

• Cake mix: Because these cupcakes are all about the decorating, I recommend keeping it simple and using a boxed cake mix as your cupcake base. I love these with yellow or white cupcakes, but you could also use lemon, strawberry, or chocolate cupcakes instead. Want a homemade option? Check out the Spring Chick Cupcake recipe.
• Frosting: We’re using a simple homemade buttercream frosting for the bird nests. If you’re looking for a shortcut, I do not recommend using store-bought canned frosting (ie, the frosting sold in plastic cans near the cake mixes.) It is too soft for this decorating technique. If your grocery store sells American buttercream-style frosting in the bakery section, that should work just fine.
• Shredded coconut: I like to add toasted sweetened shredded coconut in the nest, for both flavor and appearance. If you are not a coconut lover, you can skip this step.
• Candy eggs: Fill the nests with Jordan almonds, Cadbury mini chocolate eggs, jelly beans, or other Easter candy of your choice!
• Green gel food coloring: Gel food coloring gives our buttercream a realistic green color. For this recipe, I used Americolor Leaf Green.

Equipment

• Piping bags: I like these disposable piping bags (I wash them and re-use them to reduce waste!).
• Piping tips: You will need a small leaf tip and a grass tip to make the leaves and nest.
• Food safe markers: This is optional, but if you want to draw cute chick faces on your candies, you’ll want to use food-safe edible markers.

📋 Step-by-Step Instructions

Here’s a photo tutorial showing how to decorate these bird nest cupcakes. Full instructions are included in the recipe card down below.

Pipe the leaves

• Color half of your buttercream green, and fill a piping bag fitted with a small leaf tip.
• Carefully pipe two layers of small leaves around the outside of the top of the cupcakes.

Pipe the nest

• Next fit another piping bag with a grass tip, and fill it with chocolate buttercream.
• Pipe a circle of chocolate buttercream on top of the leaves to create a nest shape. Add two or three layers until the nest is built up slightly.

Fill the nest with toasted coconut

• Place a dollop of chocolate buttercream in the center of the nest.
• Sprinkle toasted coconut in the center.

Decorate the eggs and add them to the nest

• If desired, use a food-safe marker to draw eyes and a beak on some of the candies.
• Place an assortment of candy Easter eggs in the buttercream nest on top of the toasted coconut.
• Enjoy!

💭 Variations

Try one of these fun ideas to customize these bird’s nests:

• Mix ‘n’ match the cake and buttercream flavors. Butterscotch or peanut butter would make a delicious flavor for the nest!
• If you don’t like coconut, you could use another ingredient in the nest like crushed nuts, edible Easter grass, or crunchy chow mein noodles.
• Use fun cupcake wrappers. You could do a variety of pastel colors, green ombre to match the leaves or some fun Easter wrappers.
• Place a surprise inside the cupcake like jam, jelly beans or a truffle. 
• Have fun with the types of candy you decorate the nest with. How about marshmallow Peep chicks in the nests? The sky and your imagination are the limit!

💜 More Easter Recipes You’ll Love

• Easter Basket Cupcakes
• Pastel Rainbow Gelatin Cups
• Easter Push-Up Pops
• Marbled Easter Egg Truffles
• Easter No-Bake Mini Cheesecakes

Chocolate Easter Bird’s Nest Cookies

Chocolate Nests are a quick and easy Easter treat. These 4-ingredient no-bake cookies are made with chocolate, peanut butter, and chow mein noodles, and chocolate eggs.

Get the recipe!

Spring Chick Cupcakes

Spring Chick Cupcakes are a fun spring or Easter cupcake recipe. They start with a moist yellow cupcake, topped with a buttercream nest, and finished with a fuzzy yellow chick on top.

Get the recipe!

Easter Bird’s Nest Cupcakes

5 from 5 votes

By Elizabeth LaBau

These cute Easter Bird’s Nest Cupcakes will brighten any spring or Easter celebration!  Top your favorite cupcakes with delicious buttercream nests, then fill them with festive Easter candy eggs and chicks.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Rate Recipe

Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 22 minutes mins

Decorating time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 12 minutes mins

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Yield 24 cupcakes

Calories 299 kcal

Ingredients

 

1x2x3x

US Standard or Metric

For the cupcakes:

• ▢ 1 box yellow cake mix, plus ingredients to prepare mix

For the frosting:

• ▢ 8 oz unsalted butter, (1 cup), at room temperature
• ▢ 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ▢ 1/4 tsp salt
• ▢ 24 oz powdered sugar, (6 cups)
• ▢ 6 TBSP milk, plus more if necessary
• ▢ 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
• ▢ Green gel food coloring – leaf green

To decorate:

• ▢ 2 oz sweetened shredded coconut, (⅔ cup)
• ▢ 100 candy eggs, or Jordan almonds or jelly beans
• ▢ Food-safe markers

CUSTOMIZE: 24 cupcakes

Instructions

 

To make the cupcakes:

• Prepare the cupcakes according to the package instructions. Bake them and let them cool completely.

To make the frosting:

• Beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until creamy and light in color.
• Add the salt and vanilla and mix it in.
• Turn the mixer speed to low, and add half of the powdered sugar. Once it’s mostly incorporated, add half of the milk and mix it in.
• Repeat with the second half of the powdered sugar and the rest of the milk. Once everything is added, scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl, then mix on medium speed for about a minute, until creamy and smooth.
• At this point you can add more milk or sugar, if desired, to get the consistency you want.
• Melt the unsweetened chocolate in the microwave, then let it cool until it is barely warm to the touch.
• Divide the frosting in half, and mix the melted chocolate into one half to make chocolate frosting. Color the remaining half with green food coloring to make a leaf green color.

To decorate:

• First toast the coconut: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Scatter the coconut on a small baking sheet and bake the coconut for 5-10 minutes, until the coconut is a light brown color and has an amazing toasted coconut smell. Stir every 3-4 minutes, so that it doesn’t burn around the edges. Cool the coconut completely.
• Place the green frosting in a piping bag fitted with a small leaf tip. Pipe a circle of leaves around the outside of a cupcake, then add a second circle of leaves slightly overlapping the first.
• Place the chocolate frosting in a piping bag fitted with a grass tip. Pipe a swirl of frosting on top of the leaf border, then go around the edge several more times, building up the sides so that the frosting looks like a nest.
• Add a dollop of chocolate frosting in the center of each cupcake, and press a spoonful of toasted coconut on top, in the center of the nest.
• Use the food markers to draw eyes and a beak on some of your candy eggs, if desired. Then fill the nests with your candy chicks, eggs, marshmallow Peeps, or any other candies you’d like!
• Your Easter Bird’s Nest Cupcakes are now ready to be enjoyed! Store extras in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 days, or in the refrigerator for up to a week. If they have been chilled, allow them to come to room temperature before serving for the best taste and texture.

MEASURING TIPS

Our recipes are developed using weight measurements, and we highly recommend using a kitchen scale for baking whenever possible. However, if you prefer to use cups, volume measurements are provided as well. PLEASE NOTE: the adage “8 oz = 1 cup” is NOT true when speaking about weight, so don’t be concerned if the measurements don’t fit this formula.

Click here to learn more about baking measurements and conversion.

Nutrition

Calories: 299 kcal | Carbohydrates: 48 g | Protein: 2 g | Fat: 12 g | Saturated Fat: 8 g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4 g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3 g | Trans Fat: 0.4 g | Cholesterol: 21 mg | Sodium: 186 mg | Potassium: 71 mg | Fiber: 1 g | Sugar: 38 g | Vitamin A: 244 IU | Vitamin C: 0.04 mg | Calcium: 58 mg | Iron: 1 mg

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EASTER CUPCAKE RECIPES 🐤

We’ve rounded up 29 cute & easy Easter cupcake recipes, perfect for any spring party! Click here to get all the recipes!

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