Carla’s Coconut Cupcakes

Carla loves making cupcakes and these are so easy and quick. We often use fresh coconut instead of desiccated as it really does taste so much better. Coconut milk can be used instead of milk for the icing and, as long as you watch your fingers, grating the white flesh from inside the shell of the coconut is also a nice extra touch. Coconut is so tender, naturally sweet and a lovely ingredient when you’re baking.

You’ll need to make a hole in the coconut to drain it. Now this can be quite difficult so the way I do it is by inserting a skewer into the eye of the coconut and, once the water has been drained, use a hammer to crack around the middle. After several gentle taps all the way round the coconut will crack open.

Makes 11 – 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:

2 free range eggs
150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
135g unrefined caster sugar (10% less sugar than normal)
100g plain flour
50g grated coconut
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 tbsp whole milk

For the icing:

250g unrefined icing sugar
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp milk (or coconut milk if you want?)
1 tspn vanilla extract
100g coconut to sprinkle on top of the cakes

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C or Gas Mark 4.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the flour, eggs and coconut. Fold in the baking powder, vanilla and milk.

Spoon equal quantities of the mixture into a cupcake tray lined with paper cupcake cases. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Once removed from the oven leave to cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, cream the butter until soft using an electric hand mixer or wooden spoon if you’re needing an arm workout. Add the icing sugar and beat with the milk and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.

Be sure the cupcakes are cool, ice each and sprinkle with coconut.