Cupcakes are so popular, and I am also in love with cupcakes. I bake many kinds of cupcakes as it can be eaten simply on its own, but when you add some icing, it elevates the cupcake to a whole new level!
I made 640 cupcakes for a community project sometime in May this year. It was for a Mothers’ Day celebration and I had the help of some baking enthusiasts to bake them. It was a fun activity though we took about 6 hours to bake, decorate and pack them individually. For the project, I made the icing differently, instead of cream cheese icing I used jam and toasted coconut.
This recipe is adapted from one of my mother’s cakes. She used to make it in 1 big round cake tin, and iced it with buttercream and always shared with our neighbours.
Here I have made some variation to the icing by adding cream cheese to give another dimension and taste.
INGREDIENTS:
Cupcakes:
160g butter
150g castor sugar
200g plain flour
3 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ cup buttermilk
100g dessicated coconut
Frosting:
225g cream cheese
170g butter
350g icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 to 2 tbsp cream
200g dessicated coconut – toast in oven till golden brown and crisp
METHOD:
Cupcakes:
Toast all the coconut in a 180C oven for about 10 minutes till you have a nice aroma and the colour is light golden brown. Cool. You can leave out this step if you prefer to keep the dessicated coconut white. Keep 200g toasted coconut for decorating the cupcakes later.
Sift flour with the baking powder, and baking soda. Add 100g toasted coconut. Keep aside.
In another bowl, cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time, continue to beat well.
Mix in the vanilla extract.
Fold in flour mixture. Pour in the buttermilk and fold all together well.
Scoop into patty tins lined with cupcake liners and bake for 25 minutes.
Cool.
Frosting:
Use a hand/electric mixer and cream butter, cream cheese and vanilla extract together.
Add the icing sugar a little at a time.
Continue to beat and add some cream to get a nice consistency which should be able to be spread on the cupcake.
Use a small spatula and spread enough frosting on each cupcake. Decorate the rims with toasted coconut. You can also pipe the icing if you wish.
Serve.
