I'm Helen. I'm a mom of two, wife to my sweetie and I work from home as a telephone advice nurse. 'Triage' is from a french word meaning 'to sort'.
In nursing, it means to determine the level of urgency of care needed- so I'm a sorter of sorts:-)
In my free time, I like to bake and do home projects, like painting (walls, not pictures) My current passion is making handmade soaps and other bath and body goodies.
Coconut Cupcakes
Today I made a test batch of Coconut Cupcakes. I used a combination of a few recipes I found online. The cake is made using coconut milk instead of flavouring. On top is coconut cream cheese icing with a bit of toasted coconut sprinkled over it. They look delicious, but we haven’t tasted them yet. (ok, we tried the icing and it was so tasty by itself it probably doesn’t matter if the cupcakes are any good:-) We’re taking them to a family gathering tonight, so I’ll come back with the reviews later!
I wonder if these will be good enough to take to Cupcake Camp?
Yesterday was our 4th wedding anniversary and we took a walk all the way around the seawall (over 10km) and then stopped for a lovely Thai meal at a tiny restaurant in the West End. While we were there, we looked in to a new shop on Denman called ‘Cupcake’. It’s a very cute little bakery selling only…you guessed it…many kinds of cupcakes. They looked very pretty, but $2.95 EACH?? I think I’m in the wrong business!
Results: Well, everyone said the cupcakes tasted good. (my family is too polite to say otherwise though!) but they came out too dense for my liking., closer to a pound cake consistency. I wanted light and spongy. I like the taste of this recipe, so I think I’ll try it again making sure the eggs and all liquids are at room temperature and avoiding over mixing after adding the flour.
July 5th, 2009 8:00 am
Hi Helen
I forgot to mention this on Friday. If you are using coconut milk in the recipe you are essentially adding extra fat (coconut milk despite the name is very fatty, closer in fat content to cream or butter than to milk you drink), which is probably what is giving the cupcakes a pound cake texture. If you want a light fluffy texture and coconut flavour you might have to either use coconut extract to flavour a regular cupcake recipe or try adding toasted coconut to the batter (although flakes of coconut will also change the texture). I liked them. Sarah
July 5th, 2009 8:13 am
Ahh yes. I knew coconut milk was high in fat, but it didn’t occur to me that was why they were so dense. They are more spongey and soft once they come to room temperature, but I think I’ll switch to buttermilk for the next batch and use flavouring instead. Thanks for the tip Sarah:-)
Helen’s last blog post..Coconut Cupcakes