Cupcakes are great for getting the smallies involved in baking, although you will have to resign yourself to a very messy kitchen afterwards. Make sure to have lots of sparkles and sprinkles on hand to produce the most beautiful cupcakes imaginable.

These Easter cupcakes are very grown-up and are decorated with mini chocolate eggs. I do love the little fluffy Easter chicks and I recommend them in this recipe for decorating.

I have a special love for the fluffy chicks. When I was a newborn babe, Easter was quite late that year and close to my arrival. My sister, who was all of three years old, was smuggled into the hospital by my grandmother to meet me.

She brought me a welcome present of a fluffy Easter chick. Somehow that story has stayed with me and I adore these little chicks and will always buy them when I see them.

So, think of me on Easter morning, decorating my cakes with lots of chicks for my husband … Delicious Derek!

Makes 12

90g (3½oz) tapioca flour

115g (4½oz) corn flour

125g (5oz) potato flour

¼ teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons GF baking powder

¾ teaspoon guar gum

200g (8oz) butter/margarine, at room temperature

300g (12oz) caster sugar

3 large eggs

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

390ml (13floz) warm milk

To decorate

150g (6oz) butter/margarine at room temperature

300g (12oz) icing sugar, sieved

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Red and green natural food colouring

12 fluffy Easter chicks or mini chocolate eggs (make sure they are gluten-free please!)

1 Preheat the oven to gas mark five/190°C/375°F. Line a 12-hole queen cake tin with paper cases.

2 Sieve together the flours, salt, baking powder and gum and set aside.

3 Using a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter/margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.

4 In a small bowl, beat the eggs lightly with the vanilla and add to the butter mixture gradually, beating between each addition.

5 Add the flour mixture three tablespoons at a time and fold in between additions.

6 Add the milk to the bowl, mixing thoroughly.

7 Divide the mixture evenly between the paper cases.

8 Bake in the centre of the preheated oven until golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out dry. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

To decorate

1 Cut the butter/margarine into small cubes and place in medium bowl with the icing sugar. Mix with an electric hand-held mixer until fully blended. Add the vanilla extract and beat again.

2 Divide the mixture between two bowls, adding two to three drops of red food colouring to the first bowl and green colouring to the second bowl. Stir them well until you achieve a pale pink and pale green colour.

3 Fill a piping bag with pale pink buttercream and pipe on to half of the cupcakes using a wide-star nozzle.

Recipe by Denise O’ Callaghan from her book Recipes from my Gluten-Free Kitchen (Mercier Press). Denise is the founder of Denise’s Delicious Gluten-Free Bakery whose product range is available across Ireland from the major supermarkets, artisan food stores and the online store at www.delicious.ie.

Denise recently appeared in our own Neven Maguire’s RTÉ series Healthy Home Chef demonstrating gluten-free baking. See RTÉ Player for more.