Cupcake Hero: Razzy White Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes

This month's Cupcake Hero was hosted by Clara over at IHeartCuppycakes in conjunction with Miss Nikki of Crazy Delicious. Our fearless leader, Laurie of Quirky Cupcake is taking a much needed summer off from the Hero biz.

Clara and Nikki chose Red, White and Blue as the theme for this month of July..fitting since it's the birthday month of our lovely country. When the theme went up, I thought ... gosh there are so many obvious ways I could go with this. And I waited for inspiration on something a little less obvious and more ... genius?

It really never came. I need to do something about my obviously broken inspiration genius idea generator because it seems like lately it's been on the FRITZ! Where's the return policy on this thing?!

So last weekend when I was lounging around on the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon thinking I felt like baking, coconut cake seemed like a great choice, and a layer cake so that I could practice my Layers of Cake skills (another Laurie hosted monthly event, how does the woman do it all?)...then I thought well I don't really have a very good Hero yet, so let's do a combo.

And the Razzy White Chocolate Coconut Cupcake for Cupcake Hero was born. It was my first try at coconut cupcakes or cake for that matter though I have been wanting to try my hand at it for a long time (Martha's picture in her book of that coconut layer cake is seduction personified!), and I was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome and taste of the cupcakes. Dense yet very moist with a definite coconut flavor.



Next time I will add a bit more coconut milk for more of that kick, or use a non 2% one, but it was all I had in the pantry and I was very big on not having to go shop for ingredients this wkd, one wkd off please! But the cake was amazing, I layered a 6" one for us, 3 layers and we ate the 4th uneven crumbly one wit glee. Made two cupcakes, one for Hero and one with choco chips inside just to see what coconut and chocolate together tasted like (um, win, duh).



I put Chambord-laced raspberry jam inside the cupcake which made me giddy, and also swirled it in the top before baking for fun. Then for the frosting...I decided on a White Chocolate Coconut Marscapone Cream which was so easy to whip up and tastes absolutely AMAZING, I kid you not, esp the next day. It was great on the layer cake AND cupcake. I brought the layer cake with me to work and it was gone within 3-4 hours, and people were raving about the creativity of the razz and Chambord and coconut and chocolate.



Score one for layer cake and Cupcake Hero, zero for genius inspiration. Maybe that kinda thing is overrated??? A mouthful of this cupcake and I tend to think...possibly.



Coconut Cupcakes
1 1/3c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4c lite coconut milk
4 tbls butter
1 tblspoon canola oil
3/4c sugar
1 egg, 1 egg white (and a tiny bit of yolk, or just 2 eggs if you want!)

Cream butter, sugar, oil together til fluffy, 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Sift flour, bp, bs together. Add to wet mixture, alternating with coconut milk, ending with dry, mixing well each time and fluffing for 30 seconds on high speed at the end. Pour into cake tin or ladle into cupcake liners, 2/3 full, swirl in razzy filling if you want. Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes or until clean toothpick comes out. Makes one 6" layer cake and 2 cupcakes (or could make about 12-14 cupcakes).

Razzy Filling
1/2c raspberry jam or preserves
1 tablespoon Chambord (or more to taste)
Combine the two and mix well. It's 'to taste' so more jam or Chambord as you see fit. Swirl into cupcakes before baking or fill with a pastry bag after baking, your choice!

White Chocolate Coconut Marscapone Cream
1 bar Lindt white coconut chocolate (or white chocolate with coconut flakes)
2 tblsp heavy cream
3/4 stick softened unsalted butter
3 tblspoons marscapone cheese
2-3 cups confectioners sugar

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Add heavy cream, mix well until smooth. Let cool while you cream butter, marscapone cheese and sugar together until creamy. Add in slightly cooled white chocolate cream mix. Mix well to combine, add more conf sugar until you reach desired consistency for piping or spreading.



I swirled in some blue food coloring to make my frosting white and blue, and put a cute little white flower on top with red edible pearl stamens. Red, White, Blue all the way. Happy Birthday America.



Note....for all you eagle-eyed bloggers out there, I was not able to make the TWD this week (Galette)....but check out all the other fabulous TWD chicks (and a few awesome guys!) Fruit Galettes...I will def have to attempt that at some point but this week was not it unfortunately. Boo.