Vanilla Coconut Easter Cakes

Easter TOTALLY snuck up on me this year.

I love holidays, and I'm usually more than prepared when the day comes around. 

So I was in uncharted territory when I had to make last minute cupcakes.

Whenever I make cupcakes (or any cake), I try to do it in steps. I'll make the cake(s) one day, freeze it (or them) and decorate them the night before the event. So, the actual execution takes 1-2 days. Not too bad right? Well, believe it or not, I spend more time thinking about my cupcakes than I do actually making them.

Seriously, I don't know if that's normal or not, but it's just how I work.
I think about the cake, the flavors, the frosting, how I want to decorate, color schemes, mediums and ingredients and how I'm going to get it all done as quickly as possible before any actual baking occurs.

So whenever I have to do something last minute (very rare) I usually chicken out and find a recipe online for something classic and simple, cutting out any need to be creative.

But this time I said NO, and came up with an incredibly simple yet adorable Easter cupcake idea.

Vanilla Coconut Easter Cakes

I don't know how I never thought of this, 

but shredded coconut as Easter grass is one of the EASIEST holiday designs ever.

It literally took me less than 20 minutes to decorate these.

My friend Erin and I made these together to take to a Easter BBQ. We didn't even decorate them until this morning, and I still had time to come home, shower, pretty myself up (mermaid hair! :) go to Easter brunch and go to the BBQ at noon.
Awesome :)

It's just vanilla cake in lavender colored liners (you could totally dye the cake if you had clear liners), cream cheese frosting, dyed shredded coconut and Whopper eggs.

I opted for boxed cake mix and canned frosting for the sake of time, and made the cupcakes last night.

Once they were cool and frosted I rolled each of them in different colored shredded coconut (pink, blue, green, and yellow) and Erin arranged the candy eggs.

How to make colored coconut (so so easy):

Fill a ziploc bag with the desired amount of coconut (I did about 6 ounces of each color, did 5 cupcakes green, 5 pink, 3 blue and 3 yellow and still had left overs for each color). 

Pick out your color. 

Take a shot glass and fill it about a quarter full of water (.5 ounce). If you're going for dark vivid colors, drop 3-4 drops of food coloring into the water. For pastels, one will do. 

Pour a small amount of water into the bag (just a splash), reseal the bag and shake until the coconut is evenly coated. If it isn't as dark as desired, add another splash and shake (I would do about 3 splashes and if it still isn't dark enough add the food coloring directly, just so the coconut doesn't get soggy). 

Seal tightly in an airtight container (or just the bag) until you're ready to use it.

They shifted a little during transit, but all in all I think they turned out well :)
Like I said, this was kind of a last minute idea, so I was very excited that they were a success :)
Erin and I had fun making them, and I'll probably do some variation of this next year (maybe chocolate cake? ;)

See you soon :)