Sweet Coconut Cupcake

It's time for something sweet! I love baking and these were super sweet and adorable cupcakes. The cupcakes came about for two reasons;

1. I promised my lab I would bring in sweets
2. I found a coconut sale at the grocery store

As it turns out, opening coconuts is difficult and messy. Luckily there are many many video tutorials on the web for situations like this. I recomend draining the coconut water by poking out the eye holes and draining, then put the coconut in a towel and whack it like there's a prize inside (spoiler: there is!)! I didn't use my coconut water mostly because it needs to be filtered and I own nothing capable of filtering it well because I don't drink coffee. But I did make my own coconut milk! It's done by boiling equal parts shredded coconut meat and milk until it froths for 5min, then strain and cool. I don't think opened coconut product has a good shelf life so I'd use everything within 2-3 days max.

So carrying on, lets get to the good stuff! I used a recipe from Vanilla Garlic which by the way has some great stuff.

Ingredients

3/4 c. of unsalted butter

1 1/4 c. sugar

3 eggs

1 c. coconut milk

1 tspof vanilla extract

2 1/4 c. flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 c. dried coconut

6 oz chocolate

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. In an interesting side note, I read that preheating to 375F and then lowering to 350F when you put the cupcakes in produces more moist (moister?) cupcakes but I haven't tried yet...we'll get back to you on that one.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. It will take a few minutes so don't rush it. Add the eggs in one at a time beating very well between each addition.

In a separate bowl, mix up the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) and in yet another bowl mix the coconut milk and vanilla. Alternate adding dry and wet ingredients to the butter mix starting and ending with wet if you please. Try not to overbeat or the gluten will start to develop and it will be breadier and not as short. Fold in the dessicated coconut. Here I split the batter in half and added melted chocolate to half the batter because, I mean, choices are really the spice of life!

Scoop the batter in to the liners to just over 3/4 full and bake them for 18-22min. Don't bother waiting for the vanilla guys to turn golden brown. Those suckers are pale and delicious!

Decorating

I completely ignored the frosting on Vanilla Garlic because....7 whole minutes? With egg whites? Pass. Instead I did a buttercream which is delicious with just about everything. It's mainly just room temperature unsalted butter mixed with powdered sugar. For all the cupcakes 1/2c. butter should be enough. Add sugar until it suits your taste. Then I add a bit of vanilla (~1tsp) and a bit more coconut milk (~1tbsp) to thin it out. Make sure the milk is room temperature though or you could separate your frosting. Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost away! Although when frosting, remember that this is the only time that less is not more. For extra specialness I dipped the frosted coconut into dessicated coconut.

I'd had this idea of piped chocolate toppers for a while so I tried my hand at chocolatiering and while it looked good, didn't even come close to proper tempering. You really need a good thermometer and lots of patience and high air conditioning. So they were pretty but totally out of temper. But for your info, I melted a few ounces of chocolate (first white then semi sweet) in the microwave. A site claimed this would keep the chocolate in temper which...it did not. Anyway, once it's melted, pour the chocolate into small folded piping bags made of parchment paper and pipe onto more parchement paper into whatever design you feel like. I attached the cooled chocolate with extra buttercream.

Extras

I think the cupcakes were coconuty but they could have been coconuty-er. Next time I'd add 1 tsp coconut extract to beef up the flavour. They turned out really light and tender which was delicious and since the batter makes about 20 cupcakes, plan on sharing or long term cupcake consumption.

And a quick decal explanation; the first is a kitty face because I thought it would be cute (totally was!). The second is some doodles and hearts when I ran out of good designs and started just messing around. The third is my nerd toppers for work. We work with HeLa cells and when you stain them they kind of look like that under the microscope. And lastly, doesn't the coconut just look all fluffly like freshly fallen snow? Answer: Yes, very much.

Stir Fry

A stir fry is one of my favourite things to make when there are people coming over for supper. It's extremely cheap and you almost always end up with leftovers. This version should feed 4 people on an average night, or 3 extremely hungry people. The ingredients for a stir fry are extremely malleable based on your own taste preferences, this is just my personal favourite set.

What You'll Need

For the sauce:

- 3/4 cup water

- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar

- 3 tbls. soya sauce

- 2 tbls. corn starch

- 1 tbls. honey

- 2-4 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped finely or run through a press

- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

The rest:

- 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped how you like

- 2 good sized medallion steaks cut into small strips

- 1/2 head of cauliflower cut into bite sized pieces

- 1 head of broccoli also in bite sized florets

- 200g of sugar snap peas, with tips cut off (my preference)

- 1 can of bamboo chutes

- 1 cup of rice cooked in 1 and 1/2 cup of lightly salted water (you can use chicken broth or coconut milk instead of water if you prefer to flavour your rice)

Putting It Together

The sauce first!

Combine the dry ingredients together first, adding the brown sugar to the corn starch and stirring until mixed evenly. Add the water, soya sauce, honey, red pepper flakes and freshly chopped garlic and put it to boil stirring constantly. Let the sauce reduce until it is a little bit thicker than you want it to be after adding it to the rest of the dish, as it will thin out a bit from the moisture in the meat and vegetables. Once this is done, set it aside for later.

Time to get everything going!

The rice is the first thing that needs to go on to the burner, however at the same time it's best to get some water boiling in a larger pot in preparation to steam the vegetables. The lid must be left on the rice at all time while it's cooking. Once the water in the pot begins to boil, remove the pot from the burner and shut it off so the rice doesn't overcook, leave the lid on to let the boiling water steam the rice and cook it through over the next 10 minutes or so. As you take the pot of rice off the burner, put the vegetables in a strainer or steam tray on top of the pot of water that should now be at a rolling boil. As soon as the veggies are on, put a pan with a dash of olive oil on the oven at medium-high heat. 4 minutes into steaming the vegetables, add the strips of beef to the hot pan, stirring quickly to make sure all sides get browned. 3 minutes should be enough to cook all the meat, and the vegetables are now steamed after a combined 7 minutes, so take them off the burner. If there's a lot of fluid in the pan with the meat, drain it or your sauce will be very thin. After this is done, add in the vegetables to the pan with the meat, and pour the sauce over the combined ingredients stirring as you go. Make sure everything is covered in sauce to your liking before turning off the burner. When it's ready to go, it should look like the picture to the right.

Time to serve up!

Get some rice on the plate, poor your favourite drink and layer the food on the plate. Eat to your hearts content because it's actually a pretty healthy meal.