Put the Coconut in the Cupcakes

Don't know why I opted for coconut but why not?


I found this recipe for coconut cupcakes and gave it a try.


Bon Appetit Vanilla Coconut Cupcakes


Apparently the secret to this recipe was the "reduced coconut milk".  If you don't know where to buy coconut milk, check the Asian food aisle at your local grocery store.  Do not buy light coconut milk you need the fat.


Anywhosers...


Here is a clip of the coconut milk boiling away...

They warn in the recipe that the coconut milk will boil higher than you think, which is true, so use a bigger pan than you think you should use. 


The reduction time is about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Sweet Home Alabama was on so I was able to pass the time quickly. 


When done, let the milk cool and when it's cool, put it in the fridge!


Then make your cupcakes....

 Eww the coconut milk is kinda gray... Don't worry it's fine

Don't overfill your liners or you will have cupcake hats.  These are not conducive to traveling with cupcakes...

To kick it up, I added some melted semi-sweet chocolate and swirled it around.

Therefore making Chocolate Coconut Swirl Cupcakes!

 All dressed up with the Coconut Buttercream frosting and Toasted Coconut

 Loving the Houndstooth cupcake liners

SOOOOOO stinking good!  You should make them.

Cupcake Rating Time

1-5 (1 low, 5 high)

Hubby

Cake Texture:  3
Cake Flavor:  4

Frosting:  5+

Topping:  4

Appearance:  4
Overall:  4

Birthday Cakes!

So I've done quite a bit of baking and haven't really posted.  By "quite a bit" I mean 2 batches since the last post :)  One is a repeat and one is new!


Birthday Cakes:


Since I had already tried out my Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes on my co-workers and family I knew they were good to go so I made them for a trip to a bar to celebrate a birthday!  This time I made two different colors of frosting for the flowers.  Overall I was happy with them and L-O-V-E-D the way they tasted!  I really like lemon soooooooo they were perfect.  I highly recommend them.  If you see the previous post you will see hubby did too.  Here's some pictures

AHHHHH don't you love them?!!!


I don't think I posted pictures of the lemon curd being made last time so here it is.  The recipe is soooo super easy. 

Light Lemon Curd via Baking Bites
(from Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts)
1/3 cup strained, fresh lemon juice
2 tsp fresh lemon zest
5 tbsp sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Bring the Lemon Juice, Sugar, and Zest to a boil on the stove

 Whisk the egg in a small bowl, slowly, SLOWLY add the hot lemon sugar mixture and whisk for two minutes.

Strain the mixture back into the pot on the stove and heat until it looks like it's thickening. 

Put in small container and let cool.

Put in fridge

Get ready to pipe into cupcakes

Try not to eat it

This recipe is perfect for filling two dozen cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Nicole!

Available for your next birthday festivities

Cinnamon Chocolate

Cinnamon Chocolate Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting.  David picked the frosting color because it represents Cinnamon he said.  Not feeling too creative this week, however making two batches of cupcakes.  I need ideas for next week....

-Kristi

Happy Valentine's Day Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes!

This weekend my mom and I went to the Farmer's Market in Cerritos, CA.  If you haven't been to a farmer's market you should go ASAP.  My challenge this week was to find some lemons and strawberries to make Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes.  So I bought some strawberries and lemons!  I wasn't sure if I should make strawberry cake with lemon frosting or lemon cake with strawberry frosting but I had the ingredients I needed.  We also went to Classic Cakes in Garden Grove and I bought some new cupcake supplies :)

Herringbone, Zebra, Hearts

Sprinkles, mini Herringbone, mini round pans:)

If I had unlimited funds, my apartment would be overrun by cupcake papers and sprinkles....  You can sorta see the small round cake pans I bought.  One day you may even see me use them to make a mini ruffle layer cake.  Also exciting.

Back to cupcake making...

I decided on lemon cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting and was debating whether or not to fill them with lemon curd. 

J-E-L-L-O (secret ingredient)

Ready to bake

Those are some pretty lemons!  Ready to be made into lemon curd

All done, papers were a little overfilled

Lemon Cake Batter :)

They smelled SOOOOOOOO good!  I've never made lemon curd before but I found an easy looking recipe and had the lemons anyway (http://bakingbites.com/2008/04/low-fat-lemon-curd/).  I did not take photos of the lemon curd because I was uncertain if it would make it into the final product. 

Husband was waiting to taste test but said he wanted a complete one so he had to wait. So I dug the food processor out of the closet and pureed some of the yummy strawberries I bought.  I strained them in hopes of taking out most of the seeds but alas it didn't work too well...

Then I made my go-to cream cheese frosting recipe and added the strawberry puree and mixed away.  I really wanted to make two-tone roses again so I bought some red food coloring and hoped I would have light and dark pink.  Well strawberry naturally makes things pink so I had a nice pale pink color cream cheese frosting. 

Husband can now try the finished product.  He was pretty happy.  I put lemon curd in his as a test and topped it off with the frosting. 

Success!  He really liked them with the curd and thought it made it taste more like strawberry lemonade.  So I put some in a pastry bag and filled the cupcakes with curd.

Then I added the red food coloring to my frosting and put both the light and dark pink in a pastry bag and started piping.  Here they are....

LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!

Now on to the ratings...(1 - low, 5-high)

Husband

Cake:  5

Filling:  4

Frosting:  5

Decoration:  5

Completed Product:  10

"Refreshing, delightful, perfectly balanced, may not be here in the morning." - Husband 2/13/11

Success!

Happy Valentine's Day Blog Readers (all two of you!)

~Kristi

Recipe Search

I'm looking for a good lemon cupcake recipe.  If you know one, please share.  :)

Two-Toned Frosting

So I've been sick and therefore not baking as much.  Boo.  However I did make "purple velvet" cupcakes for my co-worker's birthday.  Since starting my blog I actually have made a version of red velvet at least 3 times.  Mainly because you can't really go wrong with red velvet.

To make it interesting this time I attempted to dye the cupcakes purple.  This was a little difficult because purple doesn't really cover brown too well.  They looked like this...

Looks like an elementary school science project.  Remember making Gak?

  Under the right light they look purple right? :)

I saw this video online on how to make two-tone frosting and decided to give it a try.  I think I used too much purple dye on my first batch.  It was a pretty lilac color but there was no way I could make the other color too much darker.  So they are slightly two-toned.  Basically you use either two different colors or two shades of the same color to pipe your frosting.  When your piping bag is put together you can put one color on one side and the other color on the other.  Simple right...Kinda.  I suggest having two pairs (or a husband) of hands or a really large cup to hold up the bag.  Then pipe away.  The other way to do it was to put the food dye in the pastry bag around the tip and then put your frosting in.  This also works but is not the way I made the "purple velvet" roses :).



Reminds me of Beauty and the Beast for some reason



Also makes me think of Alice in Wonderland and Painting the Roses Red




Source:  http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice2d.html

 
Hmmm that seems like a good idea for a theme cupcake.....Alice in Wonderland....! 

Also considering implementing a cupcake rating system and a vote for cupcake challenge flavor of the week.  I feel like I need a challenge (a la Cupcake Wars). 

-Kristi

Best Idea Ever

While driving to work this morning I had the best idea ever when I saw one of these...

Source:  ambulancetrader.com (yes it's a real site)

And the husband had even better ideas to add to it.  :)