Ah another birthday has rolled around at Chez Venza. We each have our favorite flavors around here. I always ask for lemon… she gets a bit more adventurous. This year the birthday request was coconut cream cake. Now, it’s not so much fun when she knows what I’m going to make…. so I made coconut cream cupcakes (herein “C3”).
I started with a good old reliable America’s Test Kitchen recipe for coconut cream cake. Then, after a little internet research, I discovered that any cake can become a cupcake! You just alter the baking time a bit.
Here are all the ingredients. These ATK suckers seem to follow a reliable formula; when they pick a flavor… they really try to get as much of it in there as possible. So, in this case, we have cream of coconut, (imitation) coconut extract, and sweetened coconut flakes. Whats a matter, they couldn’t figure out a way to work in coconut milk? Or coconut water? Sheesh!
A note on coconut extract: despite going to our local fancy pants spice store…no go on finding the real stuff. We had to settle for imitation. I still have yet to see real coconut extract in a store.
Here’s a great opportunity to use some frozen egg white, as this recipe calls for 9 of them. We just happened to have a container with 9! Unfortunately, I had to separate them into 4 and 5. This was impossible to do accurately.
Cream of coconut… outside of a pina colada? Crazy! It’s sticky, nasty stuff, but it tastes good and puts a ton of coconut flavor into the whole mess.
Lots of butter in the recipe. Maybe a pound total. Here a stick gets added bit by bit to the dry ingredients.
Batter goes into the cups… and into the oven. I used a cupcake recipe cooking time and temp… bake 20-25 minutes. At 20, they still looked really pale so I let them go longer. Bit of a mistake; they dried out a little. I should have tooth-picked them right away!
Now this is a weird step: the first step in making the buttercream frosting is to double-boil the whites, cream of coconut, and extract until they are 160 deg. Very odd. I should have read ahead!
Then, into the mixer….for more butter!
The icing is the best part of this recipe! Especially when you overcook the cakes a bit.
A cheap pastry tip and a ziplock bag = piping bag extraordinaire!
The icing is delicately applied to the cupcakes…. only so I can smash them into coconut. Brilliant!
Speaking of coconut, as we were… I toasted it in the oven. This stuff is delicious on its own. So good in cereal and in other things.
Behold! C3! And the best part is, she never saw it coming when I broke the cupcakes out of the trunk of our car after a concert. Birthday surprise achieved!!!
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