Limoncello Coconut Cupcakes

If there are two things that go over well in this household its lemon and coconut. We bought a bottle of limoncello for a delicious limoncello tiramisu for my birthday. However, it needs to be used in more than just the occasional martini! I've been itching to bake and what else to do but use some of those delicious ingredients for a tart, delicious summertime cupcake. It's time for some Limoncello Cupcakes!!

Lemon Cupcakes

1 1/2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter
1/2 cup sour cream (I used 1/4 C Sour cream 1/4 C buttermilk)
1 large egg
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Tablespoons of lemon zest

1) Add flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to your mixer. Use paddle attachment and beat until combined. 2) Add butter, sour cream, buttermilk (if using it, eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Add in lemon zest.
3) Divide into cupcake liners and bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes










Limoncello Curd

1 cup lemon juice (preferably fresh squeezed)
1 cup sugar
Zest from about 2 lemons
7 egg yolks
10 Tablespoons of butter
1/2 C Limoncello

1) Whisk egg yolks and set aside in a medium sized sauce pan.
2) Please lemon juice, zest and sugar in another sauce pan. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Add butter until melted.
3) Temper the eggs with the sugar/lemon mixture by slowly adding hot mixture to eggs while whisking quickly to avoid cooking the eggs before incorporated. Continue to mix until fully combined.
4) But mixture back to heat until reaches 160 Degrees.
5) Take off heat and add limoncello.
6) Cool













Coconut Frosting
2 Sticks of Butter
1/2 Cup cream of coconut
1 teaspoon coconut extract
4-5 Cups of Powdered sugar

1) Cream butter in mixer.
2) Alternate cream of coconut with powdered sugar until desired consistency is achieved.

*Side Note*
If you can keep yourself from thinking inappropriate things whole using cream of coconut you get bonus points!
I'm fairly certain its impossible.









Assembly:

Cut holes in your cupcakes using a large piping tip or a paring knife.

Fill with delicious lemon curd.

Frost cupcakes and top with toasted coconut. 

Enjoy!!

If this doesn't look absolutely delicious than you are absolutely crazy!!

Super, Super Yum. 

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

Long story short with these cupcakes. They are pure and simple delicious...if you like coconut.
If friends offer to make you birthday cupcakes for your outing and give no input what-so-ever you may end up with coconut cupcakes when you don't like coconut. If nothing else, we enjoyed making them and many more will enjoy eating them. Don't stay silent!

I will say that if you enjoy lime and/ or coconut, these cupcakes are absolutely delicious. They are tart and not overly sweet. The toasted coconut on the top gives it a great texture that pairs really well with the citrus lime flavor. I will definitely be making these again.

Super yummy delicious coconut lime cupcakes

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

Makes 12 regular or about 40 mini cupcakes

I doubled the recipe and it made 31 perfectly sized cupcakes. 

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

§                                 1/3 cup vegetable oil

§                                 3/4 cup granulated sugar

§                                 1 cup coconut milk

§                                 1/4 cup milk

§                                 1 tsp vanilla extract

§                                 1 tsp coconut extract 

§                                 1 tbsp lightly packed, finely grated lime zest

§                                 1 cup all purpose flour

§                                 1/2 tsp baking soda

§                                 1/2 tsp baking powder

§                                 1/4 tsp salt

§                                 1 cup sweetened coconut

Lime Buttercream Frosting:  (I thought this frosting was AMAZING and I don't even like frosting!)

§                                 2 sticks butter

§                                 1 tsp vanilla extract

§                                 1/4 cup fresh lime juice

§                                 3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

§                                 1 tsp finely grated lime zest (or more because its delicious)

Optional topping:

§                                 1 cup sweetened coconut, toasted in the oven until browned and crunchy

Directions

Can you tell I like green?

Cupcakes:

1.                              Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan with liners. 

2.                              In a medium bowl, mix together the vegetable oil and sugar. Add the coconut milk, milk, vanilla, coconut extract, and lime zest. Mix to combine.

3.                              Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until smooth. Add the coconut and mix to incorporate.

4.                              Bake for about 20 minutes for regular cupcakes and slightly less for mini cupcakes, until the cupcake top springs back when touched and a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean.

5.                              Cool completely on racks before icing.

Frosting:

1.                              Beat the butter until fluffy.

2.                              Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes.

3.                              Add the vanilla and lime juice, beat for another 5 to 7 minutes or so until fluffy.

4.                              Add the zest and mix to distribute.

5.                              Chill until ready to use.

To Assemble:

1.                              Heap the frosting onto the cupcakes or pipe onto cupcakes using a pastry bag and decorating tip of your choice.

2.                              If using toasted coconut on top, sprinkle the cupcakes with the toasted coconut and press lightly so that it adheres to the frosting.

3.                              Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

If any of you know how Teresa and I bake together, it usually involves me baking and Teresa doing the dishes, snitching batter and frosting and taking pictures. This venture was no different. 

Teresa's job while I finished frosting the cupcakes.

Everyone deserves a little reward. 

The frosting was absolutely amazing if you like limes. As you can see Teresa took the liberty of dipping the paddle from the frosting INTO the toasted coconut. 

Same Sex Weddings and Rainbow Cake

   Yesterday I got to go to easily the coolest and most open minded wedding I had ever been to. One of my dearest friend's sisters was getting married and I was asked to make the cake and so I was able to go celebrate the marriage of Sam and Robyn. The really cool thing about their wedding was that it was an interracial lesbian wedding that was 100% legal in the state of Iowa. It wasn't a commitment ceremony but these two got to express their love for each other in front of their friends and family, in the eyes of God and in a legally binding ceremony. It was awesome. A few weeks prior, Robyn's adoption of Detroit, a special needs child, was made official. Sam and Robyn are now an amazing family of 4, including Sam's son from a previous marriage. It was so fun to be a part of their special day and I'm so glad they allowed me to make all their wedding day goodies! How else do you celebrate a gay wedding except with a rainbow cake! I made a two tiered rainbow cake that was very wedding appropriate on the outside but a lot more fun on the inside. The reaction from everyone during the cake cutting was great!

The butterflies were also edible. 

The happy couple with their fantastic rainbow cake!

In addition to the rainbow cake, I made 10 dozen cupcakes. 

Instead of posting all the the recipes here I will link to the ones I used!

I made a total of 5 cupcake flavors:

 1) Blue Velvet

2) Chocolate Espresso

3) Chocolate

4) Pink Champagne

5) Wedding Cake

Blue Velvet Cupcakes

Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla/ Chocolate Swirl Frosting

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Wedding Cake Cupcakes

I know its been a long time since I updated my blog. This  has been a crazy busy year and I haven't had much time for baking. I'm hoping I can do a little bit more once I get my new oven installed. A big thank you to my friend Teresa for being my baking assistant and making it all possible. But most of all:

Congratulations to the new 

Samantha and Robyn Carwyn!

Happy Easter!

It has been far, far, far too long since I have had time to bake and time to update this blog. Luckily, I had my last day at Old Chicago last weekend and so now I have a little bit more free time. While I have a lot of school work to do, I took a mental break. Easter was a perfect excuse to get to baking again. My little sister, Nora, got me some adorable tulip cupcake liners for Christmas and Easter was the perfect reason to use them. I made a yellow cupcake filled with lemon curd and topped with a butter cream frosting. They were delicious and a perfect treat for a lovely Spring Easter Day!

I found a new white cake recipe, I'm always on the hunt for a good, moist white cake. This was a pretty good cake. However, it had a REALLY weird creaming method. It was delicious though. 

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake

from Sky High Triple Layer Cakes

For the cake:

4 whole large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 tsp of vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup of buttermilk

3 cups of cake flour

2 cups of sugar

4 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

8 ounces of butter at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of three 8-inch cake pans. Line with parchment paper and grease the paper.Place the eggs and the yolks in a medium bowl. Add the vanilla and 1/4 cup of buttermilk and whisk all the ingredients well. Set Aside.Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a mixer; whisk to blend. Add the remaining buttermilk and butter to the dry ingredients and with the mixer on low speed, blend together. Raise the mixer to medium speed and beat until light fluffy; 2minutes.Add the egg mixture in three additions, scrapping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

I then piped them full of lemon curd. I think lemon curd is so yummy and much easier to make than most people realize. I ended up making Ina Garten's lemon curd. It was different than most lemon curds as it used the entire egg and not just the yolk. It also used a lot of lemon peel. The lemon sugar smelled SO good. 

Ingredients

• 3 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 extra-large eggs
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.

Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.

Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.

The curd was delicious, but a little sweet. It also didn't firm up as much as I would have wanted. I think I might go back to the curd I used for the Lemon Raspberry cake I made last year. It's always worth trying new things though! 

I brought these over to my parent's house for Easter dinner. They were a hit and everyone enjoyed them. Ignore my bright red face in the picture (I walked 10 miles outside yesterday and didn't think I would need sunscreen, boy was I wrong!)

The liners were adorable. They were even cute when opening them up and they were the cutest crumpled up after the cupcakes had been enjoyed!

How cute!

It still looks like a tulip!

I hope everyone enjoyed this lovely Spring Day, had a Happy Easter/Passover. I hope I get to bake more often! I miss it and I miss blogging. I should be back more in the next few months. 

Merry Christmas Cupcakes!

I know I haven't baked much in the last couple months but that's because school and work have been insane. So instead of squeezing it in and not doing what I want, I waited for the semester to be over and then baked with a vengeance. For the holidays, I thought it would be great to bake for the people I love. I decided to make 3 varieties of cupcakes, box them up and deliver them! I went and got 30 cake boxes and 30 cupcake inserts and a ridiculous amount of baking supplies! The rest were cute cake boxes full of red velvet, yellow and peppermint mocha cupcakes! Cupcakes! A lot of cupcakes!

Like I said, I started with a TON of supplies. I used 6.5 pounds of butter, 23 cups of flour, 8 cups of buttermilk, 9 pounds of powdered sugar...just to name a few!

I did all of my baking at my parent's house because they have double convection ovens and an additional kitchenaid. I had two ovens and two kitchen aids going at once! I was a baking machine!

I did a triple batch of Red Velvet which was taken from Cooks Illustrated:

·         2 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

·         1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

·         1 pinch salt

·         1 cup buttermilk

·         1 tablespoon white vinegar

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·         2 large eggs

·         2 tablespoons cocoa powder

·         2 tablespoons red food coloring (one 1-ounce bottle)

·         12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)

·         1 1/2 cups sugar

Directions:

Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.

Whisk buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla and eggs in large measuring cup.

Mix cocoa with food coloring in small bowl until smooth paste forms.

With stand mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as necessary.

Add one-third of flour mixture and beat on medium-low speed until just incorporated, about 30 seconds.

Add half of buttermilk mixture and beat on low speed until combined, about 30 seconds.

Scrape down bowl as necessary and repeat with half of remaining flour mixture, remaining buttermilk mixture, and finally remaining flour mixture.

Scrape down bowl, add cocoa mixture and beat on medium speed until completely incorporated about 30 seconds.

Using rubber spatula give batter final stir.

Scrape into prepared pans and bake at 350* until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

The second cupcakes were Peppermint Mocha and they were delicious!

This recipe was taken from Annie's Eats Blog:

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 tsp. espresso powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 cup whole milk
1 cup strong brewed coffee
1 tsp. peppermint extract
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs

For the frosting:
6 large egg whites
1¾ plus 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tsp. peppermint extract
1-2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir together.  Combine the milk, coffee and peppermint extract in a liquid measuring cup.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugars.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Blend in the eggs one at a time.   Alternately mix in the dry and liquid ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and mixing just until incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners.  Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.   Let cool in the pan 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I then frosted them with a peppermint buttercream frosting.

Lastly, I made a yellow cake with green butter cream:

The recipe for this cake can be found on a previous post!

I ended up making 235 cupcakes! It was an amazing process! It took me about 3.5 hours to bake and another couple hours to decorate everything. 

Here's the before:

and after:

Teresa took pictures of all the cupcakes for me and me with them all!

I'm lost in a sea of cupcakes and I'm loving every minute of it!

I honestly couldn't have asked for them to turn out better. I hope that everyone who got some enjoyed them. I loved making them and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a great New Years!

Also a big thank you to my parents for letting my turn their house into a bakery for a couple days! 

Thank you to Teresa for taking pictures of the cupcakes and making the awesome Warhol like cupcake art for me with my own cupcake! 

It really couldn't have gone better! Eat up!