Coconut Cupcakes

photo courtesy of shimelle

One of my favorite desserts is coconut cupcakes! I've always found coconut cupcakes a little tricky. They either turn out too dense or too flavorless. Sometimes it tastes like a sponge with a big scoop of shredded coconut on top!
That's why I made it my business to bring you a great coconut cupcake recipe that actually tastes as good as it sounds. The secret ingredient is....coconut! I use coconut milk and shredded coconut where other recipes use regular milk and coconut extract.
Coconut cupcakes are a great treat for many reasons. It looks like a basic vanilla cupcake and therefore can be used and decorated for all sorts of occasions. This includes holidays such as Halloween, the Fourth of July, and Christmas. They can make for very festive winter cupcakes since shredded coconut resembles snow.  They make great birthday cupcakes, excellent wedding cupcakes, and perfect any-time-you-have-a-craving-for-coconut cupcakes!

Coconut Cupcakes Ingredients:

3 cups cake flour (not self rising)
2 heaping tsp Baking Powder
3 sticks (1.5 cups) salted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
.5 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup coconut milk
8 large egg whites
1 1/3 cups shredded sweetened coconut
frosting of your choice (I'll cover this later)
toasted coconut for garnishing (optional)
Makes 2 dozen

• Preheat over to 350. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
• In a bowl mix together flour and baking powder.
• In another bowl beat butter and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. With an electric mixer this should be about 3 or 4 minutes.
• Add vanilla. Carefully add one third of the flour mixture while still beating. Then add half of the coconut milk. Then add the second third of the flour mixture, and then add the rest of the coconut milk. Finish by adding the rest of the flour mixture. When it is combined (careful not to overmix!) set aside.
• In a clean bowl, whisk together egg whites and remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. You can do this manually or with an electric mixer. Beat until stiff and glossy peaks begin to form. 
• Gently fold the egg mixture into the butter and flour mixture. Until combined. You might want to do this in 2 parts. Then carefully stir in the shredded coconut. Don't over mix!
• Divide batter in cupcake pans, using about 1/4 cup of batter for each cupcake.
• Bake for 20-25 minute. Rotate pans half way through. The cupcakes are down when they turn golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean from the center. 
• Allow to cool.
• For toasted coconut: I use fresh coconut. It has amazing flavor and really adds a nice touch. This will go on top of the frosting. You can buy coconut meat, raw, or buy the whole coconut and go from there. Use 2 coconuts. Grate the coconut meat. Spread out on baking sheet and place in over preheated to 350. Allow to cook keeping an eye on it! If it's cooking unevenly, rotate the pan. It's done when it's just starting to turn golden brown

As far as frosting goes, this is really a personal choice. Using buttercream frosting is fine! It tastes great with these coconut cupcakes. I, personally, love chocolate and coconut together, so I use chocolate frosting. Some people pair lemon frosting with these cupcakes, and some like boiled frosting with them. You can also pair them with cream cheese frosting. Coconut cupcakes, as I said before, go with nearly everything. So these are the perfect cupcakes for all you coconut lovers!

Enjoy and come back soon for more cupcakes recipes.

Christmas Cupcakes

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, and none is complete without a batch of homemade Christmas cupcakes. Decorating cupcakes for Christmas is one of my favorite things to do. I love the Christmas colors and there are so many wonderful themes to choose from for you Christmas cupcakes! Just thinking about it, I don't know how I would cover all of my ideas in just one post, so this might be a 2 part post.
First let's cover what we all know and love - Christmas colors. If you're unsure how to decorate and frost cupcakes for Xmas, you can't go wring with red, white, and green. My favorite Christmas cupcakes, and the ones that always get the biggest smile, are my winter themed ones. Let's get started.

1. Winter Christmas Cupcakes or Easy Snowman Cupcakes
For this you will need: cupcakes, white icing, sugar or coconut flakes, marshmallows, pretzel sticks, chocolate covered peanut cups, chocolate sprinkles, fruit roll up for the scarf, and orange or red gummy fish.
These Christmas Cupcakes are so simple to make, I've been doing it since I was a child! First you must choose your cupcake base. Red velvet cupcakes are always a great option for Christmas, seeing as they're red, but any cupcake base can work and you should be able to find a great deal of recipes on my site! After you bake your Christmas cupcakes base, you should wait for them to cool. For these cupcakes, I use any white frosting. You can choose from buttercream frosting, boiled frosting, or cream cheese frosting. For this purpose I'll go with buttercream. Frost your cupcakes so that they have a flat top. I usually use two marshmallows for the snowman but if you want to use three, that will work two. I place one in the center of my cupcake. Thank I dab some frosting on it. Then I cut off about a quarter of the second marshmallow and place the 3/4 piece ontop of the first. I dab some frosting on the top and place a small peanut butter cup. If it's too big, cut it in half! For the snowman's scarf, take a fruit rollup and cut a thin strip. It should be about four or five inches long. Wrap it around the snowmans neck and secure one end over the other with some frosting. Now wet a toothpick and stick your snowman three times for buttons and twice for eyes and a few more times for a smile. That is where you will put the sprinkles. For the nose simply cut off the end of a gummy fish. Last, sprinkle some sugar over it, or coconut flakes, for a fresh snow look. These Christmas cupcakes are sure to be a hit with everyone!

2. Christmas Cupcakes - Christmas Trees!
This decorating idea is a little more complicated than the first one but the end result is really wonderful and you can play around with these Christmas cupcakes making them as festive as you want.
What you need: Cupcakes, Waffle cones, White frosting, small candies, pastry bag with a star tip.
For this recipe I would go with vanilla cupcakes or chocolate cupcakes, but any cupcake will do. I prefer chocolate. Bake your cupcakes and wait for them to cool. For the frosting you can either keep it white or put some green food dye in it. I would keep it white, but to each his own. When the cupcakes have cooled, put a flat layer of frosting on top of each cupcake. I like cream cheese frosting for these. Now take a waffle cone and place it upside down on top of the cupcake. Fill your pastry bag with frosting squeeze out small stars all around the cone. It gives the appearence of a snow covered Christmas tree! If you want you can leave it as so. Or you can go ahead and decorate your tree however you like.

That's all I have for now, but I promise in the next two weeks I'll be right back here with two more cupcake decorating ideas for your Christmas Cupcakes!