Coconut Cupcakes: Recipe

I have an amazing mother-in-law-to-be; she keeps her eyes peeled for anything that I may like or anything that reminds her of me. Recently, she came home with a recipe book called 'Cupcake Passion' with over 40 different recipes inside and lots of inspiration. 

Some of the recipes that I immediately bookmarked were Coconut Cupcakes; Low-fat Apple, Banana and Cinnamon Cupcakes, Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes (yes, really!), and Raspberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes.

My mother-in-law-to-be was really keen for me to try the coconut cupcakes so that was number one on the to-do list. And here is how they looked:

Aesthetically, I think they look great. Crisp, clean, and uncomplicated means easy to eat! 

The recipe, however, was an unusual one. Verdict below: 

• 200g Plain Flour
• 175g Icing Sugar  (I think this may be a typo error in the book.. I used caster)
• 115g Melted Butter
• 40g Desiccated Coconut
• 5 Egg Whites
• 3tbsp ground almonds (I omitted this step as I'm not a fan of any almond flavour)
• 1tsp baking powder

  Preheat the oven to 190C
Mix all of the dry ingredients together
Add the melted butter and egg whites slowly to the ingredients so far and mix in well
Bake for 15 minutes

I am always open to trying new recipes for cupcakes as I have a classic recipe that *always* works so I'm just as keen to see what recipes don't work.
The cupcakes were ok- slightly dryer than my usual mix, although this could be down to the coconut, and the top layer of the sponge once cool was quite firm and almost created a hard layer on top. Usually my cupcakes are soft and spongy so this did make me question how good the cupcakes were. The real test will be what my work colleagues think tomorrow as they haven't yet tasted my good cupcakes!

The icing, I loved. The ratio of icing sugar [225g] to soft butter [100g] was perfect. I hate buttercream with a passion that tastes like butter. 2tbsp of hot water really helped the buttercream soften and turn into a slightly runny buttercream. I haven't perfected a buttercream quite so well as today with the help of this recipe before.
Spread the icing over the cooled cupcakes once cool. Fill a shallow bowl with the remaining coconut and roll in one cupcake at a time, side to side.

Decorate as you wish, but keep it simple and effective. A simple ribbon around the case or a sugarpaste flower on the top, as suggested in the recipe book, really does look great.