I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! This was actually one of the first times in a long time that I was single on this day. Oddly enough though, this was one of the best Valentine’s Days I’ve had. Instead of spending the day with a significant other, I spent with my parents and friends. I invited some of my closest friends over for dinner, dessert, a little bubbly champagne, and movies. Cooking and baking are really the ways I show the people I love how much I care for them, so inviting them over was the best thing to do.

I had planned a nice Italian pasta recipe for dinner, and a little chocolate dessert for later. However, the chocolate dessert was something I had not tried before and I anticipated some troubles (troubles and messes are my forte in the kitchen, despite how much I love it!) So I figured I’d foolproof my plan and make a back up dessert. And if the chocolate one worked out, well then all the more sweets to go around! I had used coconut milk for an unfortunate failed recipe before, and I figured I wouldn’t let the rest go to waste and baked some vanilla coconut cupcakes. I found the recipe off of epicurious.com, and it is really a fantastic website for all sorts of recipes.

Vanilla Coconut Cupcakes
Yields 18 adorable cupcakes

The Ingredients for the Cupcakes:

• 2 c. of whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 1/4 tsp. of baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 3/4 c. or 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/3 c. of sugar
• Seeds scraped from one split vanilla bean or 1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 1 c. of reduced coconut milk light—have no fear, I’ll cover the reduced part. You are going to want to get 2 13 oz. cans of the coconut milk to compensate for the reduced part.

The Ingredients for the Frosting:

• 1/2 c. or 1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 1/2 c. of powdered sugar
• 1/3 c. of reduced coconut milk light
• Seeds scraped from one split vanilla bean or 1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. of salt
• Coconut shavings for garnish

One important prep part to this recipe is reducing the coconut milk. What you will need are 2 cans of 13 oz. coconut milk light. For the “reducing” part, pour these cans into a medium size saucepan and bring the milk to a boil on medium heat. After it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low and stir constantly for 25-30 minutes. I mean constantly. This thing became my baby for that time because any kind milk can be burned easily.  The milk will be reduced to a 1 1/2 c., and then you will want to place it in the refrigerator to chill.
To be honest, I really have no idea what the point is of actually reducing it. Apparently it is what helps to make the cupcakes light and moist (which they were), but when I removed it from the refrigerator about 2 hours later it was just as thick as before. I could just be clueless though to what it truly did. Oh well.  

The rest of the steps for making it happen…

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Line your muffin pan with paper liners. I wouldn’t suggest buttering/greasing/whatever because the cupcakes could fall apart.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set that aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until well blended.
   Here’s a little secret: I never remember to get the butter out of the refrigerator to warm up before I start to bake. I always realize it when I actually need the butter. As a result, I have become a pro at microwaving the butter to “room temperature”. It kind of depends on size and if its in the wrapper. If it is a full stick and in the wrapper, it can take about 24 sec. I did 10 sec., 7 sec., and then 7 sec. You want to do it in intervals so you can check because some sticks of butter heat up quicker than others. If it is unwrapped and cut into sections, it almost always takes 14 sec. If you don’t have a plate that rotates, you will want to flip the stick over so it warms up evenly.
4. Beat in 2 of the eggs, one at a time, into the butter/sugar mixture. Then add in the 3rd egg, along with the vanilla bean seeds or extract. I used the extract because sadly I haven’t been out to the store much with all this snow.
5. Beat in half of the flour mixture into the large bowl until everything is well combined. Then add in 1 c. of the reduced coconut milk (you may need to stir it up a little after it has been chilled), and mix that in. Lastly, add in the remaining flour mixture. The electric mixer is your friend! I always go until I see little ribbons forming. With this batter, it’s a bit thicker but they are there. That’s always the indicator for me that there is plenty of air in the batter so that it’ll come out light.

This picture was taken after I added in the coconut milk and blended that. I just loved how I accidentally made the batter look like a flower.

Lastly, divide the batter up among the muffin cups of the pan. I found that 1/4 c. is a good size to use to divide up the batter, and scraping the bowl you can get enough for all 18 cupcakes. Then place the pan in the oven, and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the cupcakes slightly brown and come out clean with a tester (I always feel like that is a disclaimer added—haha!) Let the cupcakes cool before you remove them and added the frosting.

Remember how I said that these cupcakes were the back up? Well, after I placed the cupcakes in the oven, I realized that I had been using a 3/4 c. instead of a 1 c. for all of my measurements. I felt devastated! I had no idea how they would turn out! Sadly, this is one of those mistakes I am very typical of making. My mom quickly eased my worries though saying that, “Cupcakes are more forgiving than cookies.” Thank goodness for that because they actually came out alright! Phew!

Now for the sugar!!! 

Let me just start off with that I do not like the original frosting recipe. It originally called for 2 sticks of butter, and when I tried it out, I found that it was far too much. I at least doubled the amount of powdered sugar to try and balance it out. So I listed it as just 1 stick, but I honestly haven’t tried it out with just that yet. I figure it’ll be a good starting point though. Use your better judgment for how you like frosting. With that said, we can continue on…

1. In a medium size bowl, combine butter, powdered sugar, reduced coconut milk, vanilla extract (or seeds!), and salt, and beat together with an electric mixer. Again, look for the ribbons, which are much more defined with frosting.

And that’s it! Pretty simple right? I just spread mine on with a knife, but you can pipe it with a bag if you’d like.  

And here is the yummy result…

 I took a quite a few pictures of these cupcakes. I couldn’t help it! They’re so cute! And let me just tell you, they are yummy! And the possibly too-buttery frosting is actually not noticable against the rest of the cupcake, so don’t worry too much about the recipe. It’ll all turn out alright. And if not, well there’s always next time! Enjoy!