Easter cupcakes

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 175 °C. Line a muffin tin with paper cups. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, knead the caster sugar with the lemon zest between your fingers, this will release as much of the aroma as possible. Add the softened butter and beat until light and fluffy.
Then add the eggs one at a time and beat again. Pour in the lemon juice, the mixture may curdle slightly, but that's okay. Then gradually stir in half of the flour mixture, milk and the remaining flour mixture and mix briefly to form a smooth dough. Divide the dough into the prepared muffin cups so that they are about 3/4 full. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the dough comes out clean. Remove the baked cakes from the oven and let them cool for about 2 minutes in the mold, then remove them and let them cool completely on a wire rack. While the cakes are cooling, prepare the cream and decorations for the chickens. Break the milk chocolate into a bowl and let it melt over a water bath.
Transfer the chocolate to a pastry bag with a very thin round tip (or simply cut off the corner) and pipe 12 beaks and 24 legs onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Let it set (you can put it in the refrigerator). Pour the egg whites into the bowl of a food processor and add the sugar to the cream. Place the bowl over a water bath. Carefully heat the egg whites with the sugar and stir with a whisk until the sugar dissolves. Then, using a food processor with a whisk, whip the egg whites into stiff peaks and gradually whisk in the softened butter, spoon by spoon. Beat on low speed until the cream thickens. Add enough yellow food coloring to get the shade you like. Fill a pastry bag with a wide, smooth round tip with the finished cream and decorate the cakes – apply a larger dollop of cream as the body and a smaller dollop of cream on top of it as the chick's head. Add eyes made of confectionery pearls and decorate with a chocolate beak and feet.