Little bit of sunshine

Where did January go?  It happens every year.  All of a sudden, it’s February!  The days are getting longer and summer is on its way.  Well, perhaps, that’s a little bit optimistic but we’re definitely getting more daylight hours!

I was feeling a little summery and hence wanted a taste of the tropics!  Coconut and mango!  England is a long way from the tropics, hence it was canned and dried coconut, and frozen mango!

I adapted my favourite vanilla cupcake recipe from Sweetapolita and added a little extra coconut filling to the batter.  Topped them with mango buttercream and voila, good to go!  A little burst of sunshine in my mouth!

What I used for the Coconut Cupcakes (makes roughly 12):

(adapted from here and here)

125ml coconut milk

2 egg whites

1 egg

20g cornflour

155g plain flour

Pinch of salt

150g sugar

10g baking powder

85g butter

180C/160C 20 minutes

What I used for the filling:

1.5 cups of shredded coconut

½ cup of condensed milk

What I used for the Mango Buttercream:

Mango buttercream

190g butter

260g icing sugar

1.5 tbs milk

62.5ml mango puree (¼ cup)

Optional:

Chopped hazelnuts or other nuts

What I did for the cupcakes:

1. First of all, mix the shredded coconut and condensed milk for the filling.  Set aside.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C (fan oven).

3. Line a cupcake/muffin tin with cupcake/muffin liners.

4. The recipe I adapted the cupcakes from is based on what I call the “topsy-turvy” method, where the butter is whisked into the dry ingredients first, before mixing with the wet ingredients.  Super easy however, old habits are hard to break so I tend to stick to the usual “cream butter and sugar first” method.

5. Hence, cream the butter and sugar.

6. Add the egg whites and egg to the creamed butter and sugar.  Mix well.

7. Add the coconut milk to the mixture.  Mix well again.

8. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt).

9. Fold the dry ingredients into the batter with a wooden spoon.

10. Spoon into the cupcake tins/liners.

11. Drop a heaped teaspoonful of the filling into the batter for each cupcake.  Push the filling into the batter so it doesn’t stick out too much.  The bits that stick out may get a bit brown but I quite like the caramelised coconutty bits.

12. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

13. Leave in tin for 10 minutes then take the cupcakes out and let them cool.

What I did for the buttercream:

1. Stick the butter, icing sugar and milk into a bowl.  Beat, beat and beat again until light and fluffy. 

2. Add the mango puree and beat beat beat.

Putting it together:

1. Once the cupcakes are cool, ice the cupcakes with the buttercream.  

Voila, done! :-)