Run Fast: Eat Cupcakes

I feel like this blog has sort of devolved into running and cupcakes. And I apologize for that. It makes it seem like I’m one of those people who all I do is run and bake.

I have a secret: that is all I do.

Well, that and work.

And spend time with my furry children and my husband and my friends; though the latter kind of ties up with the running part now that I’ve got this cute little girly group of running buddies. More on that later, though.

And I’m sorry, but this post is going to be about cupcakes. I promise, the next one will be about running. And then, if trends stay the same then you won’t hear from me for another couple months. Hopefully that’s not the case, but no promises.

Now, we’re going to talk about this cupcake because it’s a bit of inspired culinary genius, if I do say so myself. Officially, we are calling them Strawberry Lime Colada Cupcakes. They were inspired by this:

My good friend, Amy, turned the big 3-0 (…you know, that age after the one my mom says she is) on Friday. To avoid baking a cupcake we now fondly refer to as “Parking Lot Cupcakes” for like the third time in as many months, because those are the new favorite now apparently, I spammed her with a bunch of cupcake options from Pinterest and she picked that one.

I went to pull up the recipe for said Strawberry Pina Colada cupcakes, and I’m not really sure what I was expecting but embellishing on boxed white cake and then filling with pineapple goo was not it. Uck uck urk.

I’m still struggling with the idea of pineapple-goo-filled-cupcakes. Why would anyone ruin a perfectly good cupcake that way? If you are a pineapple lover then I apologize, but…ergh.

So, I quickly Googled a coconut cupcake recipe, and sure enough ask Google, and Martha shall deliver. Me ‘n’ Martha being good buddies, I picked that recipe (below). I felt confident enough in the strawberry frosting written out by the hack who wrote the rest of the recipe (boxed cake…phwah!), so I planned on staying with that, and then I trundled off to the grocery store for my ingredients.

While at the store, I thought to myself, “hmmm, I feel like coconut cupcakes with strawberry frosting just doesn’t have the level of pizzazz that I wanted for special dirty 30 birthday cupcakes. Too bad chocolate ganache sounds too weird to add to that…” And I thought that maybe regular chocolate would out-compete such delicate flavors as coconut and strawberry. All that wondering made me wonder if lime-flavored ganache was a thing.

Wouldn’t you know it, it is!

Though apparently it’s not something us Americans make often – if at all – all of the recipes I found were in ounces and grams, so we had to do a bit of converting. I also tweaked it a little bit based upon what I was able to get my hot little hands on lime-wise (read: what I already had in the house rather than what I would have to purchase).  But all in all it was quite good when I finished it!

I also ended up swapping out the frosting recipe to my go-to favorite from Annie’s eats, but added the strawberry puree to it before adding in the sugar. I’ve detailed that below as well.

I’ve also split them up into each individual recipe in case you’re like me and mix and match sometimes.

COCONUT CUPCAKES

Makes about 24 cupcakes

Coconut cupcakes

 Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup packed sweetened shredded coconut

6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/3 cups sugar

2 large eggs, plus 2 large egg whites

3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk (you can find it next to almond milk or soy milk usually…it’s quite tasty, I use it for Tyler’s super power smoothies)

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups large-flake unsweetened coconut

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk dry ingredients and sweetened shredded coconut in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition.
2. Reduce speed to low. Mix remaining wet ingredients in a bowl. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with wet ingredients and ending with dry. Scrape sides of bowl. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each full
3. Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks.

Lime Ganache

LIME GANACHE

Ingredients

I’m going to do this two ways…one with the original recipe and then what I did, I about doubled the recipe and had more than enough for 24 cupcakes. It was probably about enough for 3 dozen.

4 oz heavy cream (use only 4 oz if not using the optional spinach leaves)
5 oz white chocolate chunks
juice of 1/2 lime
zest of 1 lime

What I did:

About 1 ¼ cups heavy cream – a short 1 ¼

10 oz of white chocolate – I bought an 11 oz bag of Ghiradelli white chocolate chips, you could use the whole bag, I measured out 10 oz, but what the hell am I going to use 1 oz of white chocolate for?*

3 tbsp lime juice – I didn’t have a fresh lime, so I used what I had

Instructions

1. Boil together the heavy cream, lime juice and zest under medium-high heat. Heat about 8-12 minutes, until cream reduces (for laymen like me: that means bring it to a boil and wait until it acts thicker and the bubbles pop slower…you’ll hear a difference…it’s weird). Pour cream into heat-safe bowl. If lime zest was used, mixture should be strained to remove the bigger chunks of zest.
2. In a microwave safe bowl, place the white chocolate chunks and heat in the microwave in 20-second increments until fully melted, stirring in between.
   Slowly pour the hot cream into the bowl of white chocolate and stir. Mix until smooth and free of lumps.
3. Cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour, until the ganache becomes thick enough for spreading. (You can also place it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so.)

*My husband says you can use 1 oz of white chocolate for feeding him as it tastes good

STRAWBERRY FROSTING

Again, I adapted this one for the strawberry frosting. The original recipe can be found here:

http://www.annies-eats.com/2012/07/30/cupcake-basics-whipped-vanilla-buttercream/?cook_view=7469

Ingredients

1 ½ cups butter

3 tbsp. strawberry puree (I threw a handful of fresh berries in my bullet with a tsp of sugar and voila!)

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

3 cups confectioners’ sugar

Pinch of salt if unsalted butter is used

Instructions

1. Place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (though I used the regular one this time…it all depends upon how well I read the recipe!) and whip on medium-high speed until smooth, about a minute.
2. Add the strawberry puree and the vanilla. Whip again for 30 seconds to a minute.
3. Add the confectioners’ sugar one cup at a time and mix on medium-low until just incorporated. Beat on medium-high until smooth, about 1-2 minutes.
4. Add the heavy cream and whip on medium until just incorporated. Increase speed until on high and beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed about 4 to 5 minutes.

Then build your cupcake! Dab some ganache on the cupcake itself and swirl the frosting over the top of that once you’ve let it set for a minute!

TaDa!

Ciao,

kc