Coconut Deliciousness

Yummy!! Cupcake Break.

There have been a lot of cakes recently. Of course it is Birthday Season here. Still it is nice to take a break and try something different.

Since Chocolate, Yellow, White and Banana are consistently baked in our house I thought we should try a new flavor. Coconut. Someone that is considering asking me to make them a cake has requested a Coconut cake. I can honestly say that I have never made one. So I began the search for a cake that I could be willing to happily hand over to them.

The recipe that I settled on was one I found on the Food Network presented by The Barefoot Contessa -

Coconut Cake
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pans
2 cups sugar
5 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pans
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
4 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 (9-inch) round cake pans, then line them parchment paper. Grease them again and dust lightly with flour.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, until light yellow and fluffy. Crack the eggs into a small bowl. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl once during mixing. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well. The mixture might look curdled; don't be concerned.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the batter in 3 parts, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. Fold in the 4 ounces of coconut with a rubber spatula.

I baked these into cupcakes - they took 14 minutes each. However if you were baking into cakes the batter could be divided into 2 pans and then baked for 40-45 minutes. This recipe and directions came directly from the site - no tweaking involved.

The icing was not the one listed on the site. I used a simple Cream Cheese icing. After placing a bit of icing on the cupcakes I topped them with a tiny bit of shredded coconut.

The result was delicious!!

Bugs All Over

Not that my kids have ever had realistic ideas about what theme of cake they could have for their birthday...........I mean you did see the one where Ben said "I want a pop tart cake"......and there is that whole pesky parental fall back saying Dave and I use with the kids that goes "you can do anything you set your mind to". We use it we have to live up to it. At some point it began to be applied to cakes. Which can be a challenge, but always fun. This year for Andersen's birthday she asked for cupcakes. And she wanted to put cute little bugs on them. And she wanted to do them herself.

I spend so much time saying, "I wish you could help, but this is for someones special day and they asked me to do it so I need to be the one doing it." that it is fun to say, "It is your cake jump in and help."


And that is just exactly what Andersen did. I made some quick fondant - here is the recipe we used for this:

Fondant
1/2 cp Glucose
1 Tbs Glycerine
1 pkg Gelatin
1/4 cp cold Water
2 Tbs Shortening
1 tsp Vanilla
8 cps Sifted Powdered Sugar

Step 1 - Combine gelatin with water - let sit until thick. Place in top of a double boiler & heat until dissolved. Add Glucose, Glycerin and mix well. Stir in Shortening and just before completely melted remove from heat and add Vanilla. Set aside to cool until lukewarm.

Step 2 - Place 4 cps of Sugar in large bowl - measure out remaining 4 cps. Make a well in sugar in bowl and pour gelatin mixture in. Stir - continue to add more sugar a little at a time. Knead in remaining sugar. Knead until fondant is smooth, pliable and does not stick to your hands any longer. If too soft add in more sugar. If too stiff add water (a drop at a time).

Use immediately or store in airtight container. I prefer to wrap mine in plastic wrap and then place in airtight container.


The bugs were pretty simple to make. But for new hands I think it got somewhat frustrating. Rolling out tiny balls and tiny strips of black for Bumble Bee stripes can be hard when you haven't practiced it a ton. We did not yet have all the wonderful tools like a lovely fondant roll mat. Still - Andersen did a great job. Her friends were all excited about what she made and the cupcakes were a hit at her party.

These cupcakes were a Chocolate Cake and a Vanilla Butter cream icing.

Lemony Yumminess!!

Another yummy taste test cupcake.

This one was a White Cake from scratch. It seems a good deal of scratch recipes taste like pancake mix to me. So I am learning some tricks. Actually sifting the flour (as the directions suggest) can make a difference because there is less flour - flavor change. Also I have been taking 1/3 of the flour and replacing it with Cake Flour.

I have quoted WiseGeek in explaining the advantage of Cake Flour, "When baking a cake, most cooks aim to create a light, fluffy cake with a tender crumb. This requires a flour with a low protein content, as protein promotes the production of gluten, which can make baked goods more tough. It also means that the flour must be very finely milled, to keep baked goods from getting heavy. Finally, a flour which is starchy and able to hold large amounts of fat and sugar without collapsing is required".

Replacing some of the All Purpose Flour (even after the sifting) with Cake Flour has helped to take away the pancake flavor many of the scratch cake recipes give me.

Now after baking the perfect White Cake Cupcake I then hollowed out the center. Filled the center with a Lemon Curd - here is the recipe for the Lemon Curd recipe (gotta love Alton Brown) - and then topped the whole thing off with a Lemon Butter cream icing.

Ben took a bite of this cupcake and said, "That is what I want to take to school for my birthday." A new family favorite was born.