Toasted Coconut Cupcakes

Today, you’re going to get a two-fer, as in two recipes on one blog. Yay you! I went on a crazy baking spree last week and in addition to the vanilla cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies I made, I also made these babies. These are the toasted coconut cupcakes with coffee buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. You will benefit from my desire to put on extra weight just in time for swimsuit season.

In all honesty, these aren’t the cheapest treats to make, after all, they do call for real, pure coconut oil and I paid over $15 for my little tub of the stuff. They also call for coconut milk. Again, not particularly cheap. You can make these for that special person in your life who dreams of coconuts, their delicious milk*, and their wonderful flesh, because only that person will truly appreciate these. Everyone else would be like (with mouth full) “Mm.  Do I ta coco ut in eezz?”

Toasted Coconut Cupcakes

1 cup ap flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup coconut oil

1 cup coconut milk

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp coconut extract

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (I used the sweetened stuff and the sugar police did not come to my home and haul me away)

Oven at 350. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Melt the coconut oil in a small sauce pan, then let cool, but obviously not enough to solidify again. Set aside. In a small bowl, sift together dry ingredients. In a large bowl, mix wet ingredients. Add in the coconut oil. Add the flour mixture in batches and beat well. Fold in the shredded coconut. Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full. Bake for about 25 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting with this….

Coffee Buttercream Frosting

1/4 shortening (non-hydrogenated is preferred)

1/4 margarine (see above)

2 cups confectioners sugar

2 tbsp coconut milk

1 1/2 tsp strong brewed coffee, cooled obviously

1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream together margarine, shortening, vanilla, coconut milk and coffee. Add powdered sugar and beat well.

When you have frosted your delightfully delicious cupcakes, you will need to roll the edges in heavenly toasted coconut. I simply took about 2/3 cup shredded coconut, placed it in a fry pan, and tossed it around until it was nicely browned. Once nicely edged in coconut, each cuppie got a coffee bean dipped in chocolate. Just when you thought you couldn’t get any more shaky and buzzed up from the caffeine and sugar in these, I give you that little something to put you right over the rainbow, as Lula might say. Now, go watch Wild At Heart.

*For the record, I like coconut milk in the can, but I think it’s nasty straight from the nut. I tried it last summer at VeggieFest here in Schaumburg, IL. It was fairly gross.

Banana Cake with Frosting

3 overly ripened bananas

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups ap flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Heat oven to 375. Spray a 9 by 9 pan with no stick. Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl, then mix dry ingredients in a smaller bowl. Mix dry into wet. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes. Frost with….

You can either use vegan cream cheese frosting, vanilla frosting with banana extract, or if you’re on a budget, just plain vanilla frosting. Any of these works and is fabulous! I used vegan cream cheese frosting here because I had some of the vegan cream cheese left over that no one was touching. I mean, it’s not real cream cheese, and doesn’t even come close in my opinion. It’s really only good for frostings.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 cup margarine

1/4 vegan cream cheese

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Cream together. Frost. Yum.

I have to read Swann’s Way for my literature class. Coming soon…Fight Club cupcakes!

Iron Cupcake Entry!!

So, I’m back from vacation. I took my older kids to Maine for a week, and brought along my gay boyfriend and my mother, in true hag fashion.

Ah, Iron Cupcake. I’ve been thinking about you.

My friend, the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen is hosting a challenge called Iron Cupcake: Earth and I decided to join in on the fun.

The theme for this month is chili peppers. I did quite a bit of searching online for different ideas because nothing was coming to mind that would be interesting and original enough for me. I figured everybody and their uncle would be doing some sort of chocolate and chili powder combination and that’s a little too easy for this gal. Hmm…what should I do? Then I saw it: Jalapeach preserves. A delicously sweet and spicy combination of peaches and jalapenos. Sound gross? I thought so too, but I tasted those preserves and boy are they good. I then thought of corn muffins and remembered how a certain ex-boyfriend of mine used to accompany me to the local Cracker Barrel for breakfast. When they would bring that basket of muffins and biscuits to the table, I would invariably grab for a crumbly corn treat and he would say “No! Don’t eat the muffins! Don’t EVER eat the muffins!” (That story works better if you picture it happening in slow motion, by the way.) I then wondered how a corn muffin would taste with chunks of peaches in it. Add to that a glaze of the Jalapeach preserves. Top it with a smooth cream cheese icing. Garnish it with a circle of jalapeño. I thought I was onto something, for sure. I’m calling them Jalapeach Crumble Muffins with Cream Cheese Icing. By the way, they are indeed vegan. Mmmm….

For the muffins:

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or AP works just as good, I’ve tried both)

1 cup cornmeal

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup evaporated cane juice (or plain ol’ sugar)

1/2 cup canola oil

1 cup plain soy milk

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/3 cup diced fresh peaches (not frozen! too much moisture!! argh!)

Preheat oven to 400 then spray your muffin tin with no-stick. This follows the standard recipe guidelines- let vinegar sit in soy milk for a few minutes to curdle. Mix wet stuff together, mix dry stuff together, mix wet into dry, then mix in peaches. Woot! Divide evenly amongst 12 tins then bake for 20 to 25 minutes depending how hot your oven gets or whatnot. Mine were done enough after just 20 minutes. Let them cool completely before you glaze and frost!!

For the preserves glaze, I simply put about 1/3 cup of the jalapeach into my saucepan and warmed it up on low until it was liquidy. Then I let it cool. Next I took my teaspoon and gently spooned a little onto the top of each muffin using the back of the spoon to spread it around. It smelled soooooo good you guys, I swear!

For the icing I borrowed my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and tweaked it just a hair. Here it is…

For the icing:

1/4 non-hydrogenated margarine, softened

1/4 cup vegan cream cheese, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp Jalapeach preserves

Cream margarine and cream cheese til light and fluffy then stir in powdered sugar and preserves and mix the crap outta that frosting! I omitted the vanilla from the original recipe and tossed in a spoonful of the Jalapeach because I’m crazy like that , I guess.

I then decided that I had to taste one in order for this to be complete. My assessment: delicious! I’m not just making that up either. I’m not a “call it yummy when it’s nasty” kind of girl. They were a little…different, don’t get me wrong. The jalapeno flavor was not at all overwhelming, which was fine with me. The frosting was fantastic and the sweet glaze went perfectly with the almost-savory muffin. The peaches were bursting with juicy flavor, also. All in all, I think I did a good job on this one.

So, if I win here are the killer prizes the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen will send me: an original piece of artwork by Cakespy, a sweet apron from Jessie Steele, the one and only awesome cupcake courier, and Taste of Home books. Nice! Oh, and here’s a shout out to our other corporate sponsors, Fiesta Products and Hello, Cupcake!

I had a recurring fantasy all week long that goes something like this: Dave Grohl is in town for the Harley celebration. He reads something about the challenge and offers to be a guest judge. He picks my treat as the winner and while my husband is at work decides to hand deliver the prizes to my front door wearing nothing but a leopard thong. Okay, the thong part is gross, I’ll admit it. Dudes who wear thongs are pretty gay, but still. If you know anything about me, you know that the Foo Fighters are my favorite band and I’m disgustingly in love with Davey. Our daughters are only 6 months apart in age and do you KNOW how close I came to naming her Violet? Anyways…

I hope I win. Until then, I’m going to sit here and dream of you-know-who while eating the remaining ten Jalapeach crumble muffins with cream cheese icing…

Tiramisu cuppies, garlic soup, Trader Joe’s and Veggie Bite!!

I’m not gonna lie…I’ve never like tiramisu very much. It’s just not chocolaty enough for me. In fact, the only chocolate in there is a lame dusting of cocoa powder on top. Blah. The first time I had it was when my mother and I went to eat at a restaurant in Colorado while visiting my brother about 13 years ago. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was sorely disappointed, let’s just put that out there.

Last week, my best friend Robert went to a wedding in California. I told him that when he got back, I would make him the tiramisu cupcakes(p119) from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. So, these are for you, gayhole.

You are making the basic vanilla cupcakes(p33) but doing things to the cupcake afterward to make it all tiramisu-y.

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 1/4 c ap flour

2 Tbsp cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 c canola oil

3/4 sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

Put the soy milk aside with the cider vinegar to curdle, making it our version of buttermilk. This should only take about 5 minutes. Next, mix wet ingredients into it. Mix dry stuff separately, then mix it all together until there are no large lumps. As always, and you’ve heard it a million times, DO NOT overmix. Please.

Fill your lined muffin tins about 3/4 full or until you’ve used all the batter to make 12 cuppies. Bake for 20 minutes, maybe 22 if your oven is a jerk. Let cool.

I did not let mine cool completely, instead, I only let them cool for about 15 minutes. Then I cut out a cone shape with a paring knife. One of the only good uses for a paring knife, I believe. (How often do you use that thing? I mean, come on.)

Next, I made the cream cheese frosting(p158).

1/4 earth balance (or any non-hydrogenated vegan margarine)

1/4 vegan cream cheese, i used toffutti

2 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Cream margie and toffutti until fluffy, add vanilla, add powdered sugar. Bam! This didn’t taste very cream cheese-y to me, but it was still the shiz, so I’m keeping it.

I then mixed 1/3 cup Starbuck’s coffee liqueur with 1/3 cup water and 3 tsps of instant coffee mixed and microwaved. I wanted it strong, yo!! (You can use any coffee liqueur, really.) And for my straight edge friends, obviously if you omit this, add more of the extra strong coffee, probably espresso powder instead of coffee would be better. And if you have an espresso machine…well, you rule. Use that instead. And marry me, please.

You put about 2 Tbsp of this into the cavity of each cupcake, make sure it’s nice and soggy. Believe me, you want to taste the coffeeness. Pipe in your cream cheese frosting, and the replace the cone once you have dipped it into that coffee ooze. Use your sifter to dust a mixture of 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp cocoa powder over the tops of these.

These were amazing. I am totally hurting my shoulder patting myself on the back right now, but they were THAT good.

I also went to a place called Veggie Bite today and had the most amazing chocolate shake. My friend lives right by the one on 111th (which I had no idea of) in Chicago so I told her i would be visiting her more often. Even she, the veal and pate loving omnivore said, and I quote, “I am really impressed with how good this shake is right now.” Then she proceeded to argue with me- right in the joint- as to why cow’s milk is totally normal and good for you and okay to drink. Sigh. And she’s in law school, ya’ll. Don’t ya just love lawyers? They can rationalize anything.

And Trader Joe’s– what’s that all about?? I went there like ten years ago and forgot it even existed for while but I went back today. I wanted to take a picture of my receipt because, seriously, everything I bought was like two dollars. Seriously. I will be shopping there from now on. I think it’s totally worth the 25 minutes drive.

Oh, and I made this kickass garlic and white bean soup from Vegan With a Vengeance(p67). I served it with crusty wheat artisan (vegan) bread. It had just enough fennel to NOT be overpowering, because I totally hate that black licorice crap flavor, and I got to put my immersion blender to work. That poor thing has been collecting dust for far too long. Even my omni hubby loved this hearty and filling soup! But really, who wouldn’t like two whole bulbs of garlic roasted then squeezed and blended into soup? Especially these crazy eye-talians I find myself suddenly related to!

Until next time…vengeance is mine!! Oh, and so is the falafel.