Hatch a new Easter tradition by serving this Baby Chick Cupcake Cake to your family. This adorable pull-apart Easter cake is easy to create using lemon cupcakes topped with lemon frosting.
It was so fun creating my first pull-apart cake for St. Patrick’s Day, a Leprechaun Hat Cupcake Cake, that I got right back into the kitchen to make this sweet Baby Chick Cupcake Cake for Easter.
I know many of you host lots of guests on Easter Sunday and these types of cakes make a great dessert for a crowd. There’s no need for you to cut the cake as your party guests can simply pull the cupcakes from the cake.
Plus they are so easy to make.
RELATED: You can see all of my Easter recipes, here.
How to make a Baby Chick Cupcake Cake
You’ll start by baking a batch of lemon cupcakes and making some lemon frosting. I chose to just doctor up a lemon cake mix to make this dessert really quick and easy and I topped them with homemade lemon frosting.
To make a cake mix taste homemade all you have to do is add some pudding mix and sour cream along with the ingredients called for on the box. This makes an incredibly moist and delicious cake.
Lemon Cupcake Recipe:
- Combine 1 lemon cake mix with 3 tablespoons lemon pudding mix, 3 tablespoons sour cream, 3 eggs, 1 cup water, and 1/3 cup oil. (Change the quantities if your lemon cake mix calls for different amounts of eggs, water, and oil.)
- Beat, using an electric mixer, on low speed for 30 seconds then increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes.
- Spoon into 24 cupcake liners.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes until the cupcake springs back when your press the center with your finger.
- Cool completely.
Lemon Frosting Recipe:
- Beat 2 sticks (1 cup) of softened butter until light and fluffy.
- Add 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice, 1 tablespoon lemon zest, and 2 cups of powdered sugar and beat just to combine.
- Add an additional 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about a minute.
Color the frosting:
- Remove 1 cup of the frosting then color the remaining frosting using yellow food coloring.
- Leave about 1/3 cup of the frosting white.
- Color 1/2 cup of the frosting orange.
- Color the remaining frosting black.
How to Decorate your Baby Chick Cupcake Cake:
Arrange the cupcakes.
- Arrange 21 cupcakes in an oval on a cake board or serving platter.
Fill the gaps in your cupcake cake with rice krispie treats.
When you arrange cupcakes together to form the oval shape of your Baby Chick Cupcake Cake there will be gaps in between the round little cakes. Those larger holes need to be filled in order to have a flat surface to cover with frosting. You can cut cupcakes into pieces to fill the gaps or use marshmallows, but I prefer to use cereal treats.
- Rice Krispie Treats can be molded into just the right shape to fill in the gaps in between the cupcakes.
- The treats taste great covered in a bit of frosting!
- Rice Krispie Treats are easy to make:
- Melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 4 ounces of marshmallows then mix in 2 cups of rice krispie cereal.
- Let it cool just enough so that you can pick it up and mold it into shapes.
- Press the cereal treats into a shape that will fit in between 4 cupcakes.
- Or you can just use store-bought cereal treats like I did.
- Just cut them, if needed, and mold them into the shape needed to fill the gaps between the cupcakes.
- I used 4 cereal treats to fill in the gaps of this cupcake cake.
Pipe frosting over top of the cupcakes and cereal treats.
- Fit 4 pastry bags with star tips.
- Fill one bag with yellow frosting, one with white, one with orange, and one with black.
- Pipe frosting stars onto the cupcakes and cereal treats.
- Start by piping on the round black pupils for the chick’s eyes then add white around the black.
- Add a beak under the eyes.
- Then pipe yellow over the rest of the cake.
- Pipe on two feet using orange frosting.
How to use a star tip?
- Hold your pastry bag (which is fitted with a star tip and filled with frosting) just above the cupcake.
- With gentle pressure squeeze a small amount of frosting out of the pastry bag.
- Gently push the frosting down onto the cake then stop squeezing the bag and quickly pull up.
- The frosting will break off from the pastry bag forming a star shaped peak of frosting on your cupcake.
To see this in action and to see a better visual of how to decorate your Easter pull-apart cake watch this video.
Baby Chick Cupcake Cake Video
Easter Pull-Apart Cake Recipe
A cute pull-apart cupcake cake that looks like a baby chick makes a festive and fun dessert for Easter. Your family will love this lemon cake topped with lemon frosting.
- 1 box (15.25 ounce) box lemon cake mix
- 3 tablespoons instant lemon pudding mix (dry powder)
- 3 tablespoons sour cream
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup room temperature water
- 1/3 cup vegetable oi
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 4 1/2 cups powdered confectioners sugar
- yellow, orange, and black food coloring
- 4 rice krispie treats
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Combine lemon cake mix with lemon pudding mix, sour cream, eggs, water, and vegetable oil.
-
Beat, using an electric mixer, on low speed for 30 seconds then increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes.
-
Spoon into 24 cupcake liners.
-
Bake for 18-20 minutes until the cupcake springs back when your press the center with your finger.
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Cool completely.
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Beat the softened butter until light and fluffy.
-
Add the freshly squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest, and 2 cups of powdered sugar and beat just to combine.
-
Add the remaining 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about a minute.
-
Remove 1 cup of the frosting then color the remaining frosting using yellow food coloring.
-
Leave about 1/3 cup of the frosting white.
-
Color 1/2 cup of the frosting orange.
-
Color the remaining tablespoons of frosting black.
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Arrange 21 of the cupcakes in an oval on a cake board or serving platter.
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Fill the gaps in your cupcake cake using pieces of the rice krispie treats.
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Fit 4 pastry bags with star tips. Fill one bag with yellow frosting, one with white, one with orange, and one with black.
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Pipe two circles of black frosting for the chick's pupils then surround those with white frosting. Add a white highlight in each pupil.
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Add a beak under the eyes.
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Then pipe yellow frosting over the rest of the cake.
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Pipe on two feet using orange frosting.
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Serve and enjoy!
Did you make this recipe or do you just think it is super cute? Let me know by leaving a comment and rating the recipe below.
If you love celebrating Easter with cute treats be sure to check out these other recipes:
See all of my Easter recipes, here.
Will you make this Baby Chick Cupcake Cake for Easter? Let me know in the comments below.
Fun food for parties and special occasions. Cuz I’d rather be in my kitchen decorating a cute pull-apart cake than cleaning a chicken coop.
Have a sweet day! – Beth
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Be sure to check out my other recipe tutorials to make these fun Baby Chick themed snacks and treats…
Chocolate Caramel Fudge Filled Easter Chicks
White Chocolate Candy Filled Easter Chicks
Leave a comment below and be sure to click on the stars to rate this recipe.
That is the cutest cupcake cake!! I bet the kids love it! He’s too cute to eat!
Thanks Kristyn. I shared this with some neighbor kids and they definitely did love it! The adults loved the lemony cupcakes too.
This cake is adorable! I love it!
I’m so glad you like it! 🙂
This is darling as can be!
Thanks Rachael. 🙂
This is absolutely adorable! And I love the tip to fill in the gaps with Rice Krispie treats!
there are adorable!! my kids would love these for easter – definitely giving a try!!
This is one of the cutest pull-apart cupcakes cakes I’ve ever seen!! Happy Easter, Beth! :o)
Thanks Karen, I hope you have a Happy Easter too!