Before I start babbling I’ll get this out of the way: WELCOME TO CUPCAKEREHAB.COM! Its finally up and running… whew. Not perfect, but I’ll fix it. Now on to the cupcakes!
Happy (early) St. Patricks Day! Don’t you love a holiday where its acceptable to paint shamrocks on your face, dress like a leprechaun, put on a fake Irish brogue and get completely and utterly drunk and act stupid? Not that I did any of that. Yet. Heh, kidding. Well, I am! St. Patricks Day is tomorrow… sheesh.
I don’t watch the Food Network often, but when I do I always see one of four things: The cake challenges (love those!), the Iron Chef (love that too) or Paula Deen or Ina Garten’s food shows. I love Paula, I do, I actually think shes half in the bag most of the time but she’s a riot. I found (Jean Georges pastry chef) Johnny Iuzzini by watching her ‘Paula’s Party’ show and I may in fact begin to stalk him. Just kidding. *ahem* Now while Ina’s show isn’t as fun and exciting as Paula’s (and I’ve never seen a cute tattooed pastry chef on it), I still really like her recipes. I’ve been wanting to try these for months and I’ve only mentioned them, oh, a million times. I finally ended up with coconut, almond extract and cream cheese at the same time, so I was able to. I think Ina Garten makes some awesome stuff, I’ve got her beef stew, macaroni-n-cheese and scones on my “To-Do” list.
(By the way: I have no idea why, but I mentally call her “Eena” instead of “Eye-na”…. but thats okay. I’m sure it wouldn’t be okay with her, but oh well.)
This recipe makes more than 2 dozen champion choicest coconut-ty cupcakes of considerable confectionery coolness. I love alliteration. It made 36 cupcakes for me. I almost halved the recipe, just because it seemed like so much (3 sticks of butter for the batter ALONE?! FIVE FRIGGIN’ EGGS!? Ina, whatzefack?) but I’m glad I didn’t because they’re amazing and I plan on eating a million. Jay hates shredded coconut so I knew he couldn’t be counted on to definitely eat any of them, but I left two plain without coconut on top just for him to try. Which he probably won’t. Boo to him. But I like coconut so I’m sure my ass will be twice as fat in a few days. Decoration wise: seeing as how its the day of greenery, I dyed the coconut green as well as the frosting. I thought the green coconut kinda looked like grass, and Ireland is all about the green grass…
COCONUT CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
- ¾ pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 5 extra-large eggs at room temperature (I used large, not extra large, and thats fine)
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure almond extract
- 3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt (regular salt is fine too)
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut
For the frosting:
- 8 oz. cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon pure almond extract
- 3 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.
- Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner to the top with batter. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.
- Meanwhile, make the frosting. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on low speed, cream together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla and almond extracts. Add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until smooth.
- Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with the remaining coconut.
I piped my frosting on with a Wilton tip #12 before dipping them in a bowl of dyed coconut. If you wanna dye the coconut like I did, which would be really cute for many different types of themed cupcakes, like golf cupcakes (with those chocolate foil wrapped golf balls on top!) its really simple. There are two ways:
- You can use wet (liquid) food coloring to tint coconut. Place the coconut in a large bowl, sprinkle some food coloring, being careful not to add too much as you can always add more. Wearing gloves, toss the mixture until uniform in color. If you don’t wear gloves, good luck with looking like you’re turning into the Incredible Hulk for a week.
- A less messy way: you can use the same type of food coloring, except put the coconut and the food coloring in a Ziplock baggie, and shake until uniformly colored.
I had to water down some Wilton gel food coloring because my liquid green seems to have vanished into thin air. If it was red, I’d say maybe it was a vampire food coloring and it just turned into a teeny red bat and flew away… but it was green. if anyone has seen my green food coloring bottle please let me know. Maybe he fell in with a bad crowd. I don’t care, I love him anyway and want him to come home.
Wow… okay sorry that last paragraph was a testament to my insanity. I swear I’m not drunk. Forgive me.
OH! And before I go… heres another interesting little search engine query:
Third line down: Why do people wear aprons?
Why, I have no idea. Aprons! What a silly notion. 😉
I actually did not wear my apron ths evening while baking and now I look like a mess. Thats why people bake with aprons!
Yay~ to the cupcakes and the new site! Everything looks really beautiful. Thought I’d break through the lurk and run and take a moment to say you dun good… I absolutely LURVE the cupcake puppet master! But does this officially make you the cupcake godfather? eek!
Thank you!
Haha, I don’t think I’m quite at the level of Cakefather, or Cakemother, but maybe I’m a Capo? Haha….
Awesome post. Thank you so much. I have been looking for a coconut cupcake recipe!
Well these are definitely the best!
Thank you for the dyed coconut instructions – my son wants a “bee” cake for his bday, so I’m layering yellow & chocolate cake, then topping it with coconut grass, marzipan bees, and cookiepop flowers. 😀
You’re welcome, Chere! It sounds super cute.. happy birthday to him!
I’m gone to convey my little brother, that he should also visit this weblog on regular basis
to take updated from hottest reports.
Some truly interesting information, well written and generally
user genial.
I was recommended this blog by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know
such detailed about my trouble. You’re incredible!
Thanks!
Wow! This blog looks just like my old one! It’s on a completely different topic but
it has pretty much the same layout and design. Superb choice of
colors!
continuously i used to read smaller posts that as well clear their
motive, and that is also happening with this piece
of writing which I am reading now.
Attractive component to content. I just stumbled upon your weblog and in accession capital to claim that I get actually loved account your weblog posts.
Anyway I will be subscribing on your feeds and even I fulfillment you get admission to constantly fast.
I absolutely love your website.. Great colors & theme.
Did you create this amazing site yourself? Please reply back as I’m looking to
create my own personal blog and would love to
learn where you got this from or just what the theme is named.
Kudos!
I was honored to receive a call from my friend immediately
he observed the important points shared in your
site. Browsing your blog write-up is a real amazing experience.
Thank you for thinking about readers just like me,
and I wish you the best of achievements like a professional in this domain.
Some really wondrous work on behalf of the owner of this internet site, utterly great content.
What’s up, this weekend is pleasant designed for me, since this moment i am reading this enormous educational paragraph here at my house.
I’m excited to discover this web site. I want to to thank you for your time for
this fantastic read!! I definitely enjoyed every part of it and i also have you saved to fav to look at new information on your website.
As soon as I detected this web site I went on reddit
to share some of the love with them.
Hi to all, how is everything, I think every one is getting more
from this site, and your views are good in support of new viewers.
Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor.
Sorry for the huge review, but I’m really loving the new Zune, and hope this, as well as the excellent reviews some other people have written, will help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a bit,
but instead of that, this is magnificent blog. An excellent read.
I will certainly be back.
Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor.
Woah! I’m really loving the template/theme of this blog.
It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s
very hard to get that “perfect balance” between superb usability
and visual appeal. I must say you have done a excellent job with this.
In addition, the blog loads extremely fast for me on Chrome.
Superb Blog!
Hi there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and found that it is truly informative. I’m going to watch out for brussels. I’ll be grateful if you continue this in future. Lots of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!|
Article writing is also a fun, if you be familiar with after
that you can write otherwise it is complex to write.
Hey very interesting blog!