After eating a wonderful Coconut Cupcake last week from a local cupcake van, I was inspired to create my own! I started by scouring cupcake cookbooks for ideas!
The Coconut Cupcake recipe came from
Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes, I love this book, great recipes, great pictures. Instead of following the directions exactly, I just used the cupcake part of the recipe and replaced butter for applesauce, I also added 1 teaspoon coconut extract. This recipe does have filling and frosting included, I just chose to use a different filling and frosting. You could also just add 1 teaspoon coconut extract to your favorite white or yellow cupcake recipe. The frosting I used came from another book I really like,
Betty Crocker Just Cupcakes. I wanted a graham cracker crust, and couldn't find a recipe with a how to on this, so I just used the ratio 8 whole graham crackers (not broken on the lines) to 4 Tablespoons butter. Crush the graham crackers first in a zipper bag with a rolling pin and then put them in a bowl with melted butter.
I put about 2 teaspoons of the graham cracker crust into the bottom of each cupcake liner (24 liners). I smashed this down with a small cup and then put the cupcake batter into each of the 24 liners dividing evenally, about 3/4 of an ice cream scoop. I took the picture below before squishing down the graham cracker crust.
The cupcakes baked at 350 for about 18 minutes. While they were cooling I lined a cookie sheet with parchment and toasted about half a bag of coconut and put that in the 350 degree oven, taking out every 2 minutes to stir, for a total of about 8-10 minutes. While the coconut was toasting, I mixed up some Coconut Cream pudding and let that set up, this is what I filled the cupcakes with using the long Wilton Tip 230 and the pudding in a piping bag. I filled them quite full poking 2 holes in each cupcake. You can either use a spoon and scoop off the extra or just leave it on and frost right over it.
I put the filled cupcakes in the refrigerator while I prepared the coconut frosting according to the Coconut Cream forsting recipe in the book
Betty Crocker Just Cupcakes. The key ingredient in the recipe is another 1 teaspoon of coconut extract to a buttercream icing, butter, not shortening.
Finally I just snipped the end off a piping bag, filled it with my icing and swirled it on each cupcake, this can be as neat or as messy as you want, no one will see it. After putting icing on each cupcake I pressed the toasted coconut into the icing and some of the cupcakes I topped with a
Wilton Nest with Jelly Beans Royal Icing Decoration.
The others I topped with Reese's Pieces Eggs, leaving the filling of the cupcake uncovered so the candies would stick to it.
I love how they turned out!
The taste of coconut is throughout the cupcake and that is what I like in a coconut cupcake! These would make great anytime cupcakes without the decorations!
