The Almond Joy Cupcake

I know, its been too long!  We've had a few busy weeks and a round of dud cupcakes.  I attempted the coconut cupcake a few weeks ago and it was just not good.  It was dry and it tasted nothing like coconut SO I didn't think it was worth talking about :)

This week was a different story - I made the most delicious coconut cupcakes ever!  Topped with chocolate frosting and a milk chocolate covered almond.....I've named it the Almond Joy cupcake.

Here's my recipe for the cupcakes - there's a lot of different coconut substitutions but its worth it - you get the best coconut flavor:

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 6 tbl spns butter
• ½ cup coconut cream
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons coconut extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup coconut milk
• ½ cup coconut flakes

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.

2.     In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar, butter and coconut cream. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the coconut extract. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the coconut milk until batter is smooth. Hand mix in the coconut flakes, don't over mix. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.

3.     For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

To top them off I wanted to create a chocolate frosting.  I made my usual buttercream and then made a chocolate ganache and mixed it in to the frosting.  Very good flavor but it was too melty for me.  I need a frosting that can be out of the fridge without looking droopy!  I'll need to perfect this my next go around - more confectioner's sugar is usually the answer for a droopy frosting so I'll try that first.  Any suggestion's on making a good chocolate frosting that is easy to decorate with would be great!

I also wanted to mention a class I took recently with a friend of mine.  It was called specialty cake decorating.  Basically it was how to make and use fondant, how to ice a cake and then how to build a tiered cake and decorate it.  It was really fun. I wish I had known we needed to have a design ready when we took the class - I didn't like how mine came out but it was really fun and I learned a lot.  Fondant is never something I ever want to make....there's way too much work involved!!  I did enjoy creating with it though...its just like play dough!  It doesn't taste very good though....

Here's my creation:

Thanks for reading!  I'll be making some cupcakes for a work party this week so stay tuned....