Lemon Lime filled Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

Excuse me while I try to stop drooling over these cupcakes long enough to finish this post! These cupcakes were super delicious. Probably the best cupcakes I've ever made! The inspiration came from a friend's blog, Lizardbreath Creations , a month or so ago. She made lemon-lime curd and homemade coconut bread and served the two together! How brilliant! So I made the coconut bread recipe and instead of baking it in a loaf pan as directed, I baked it in cupcake pans. I filled the cupcakes with the lemon-lime curd and topped with a simple buttercream flavoured with coconut. You honestly can't go wrong with this one!


Make the lemon-lime curd first. You will have to cook it and let it cool and set before using it to fill the cupcakes. You can find the recipe here - I followed the recipe exactly using the smaller quantity of sugar. You don't want the curd to be too sweet because the cupcakes + the icing are sweet enough already. You want something a little bit tart to balance out the sweetness.

Next up bake the cupcakes. Let them cool completely before attempting to pipe the curd into the middle of them though. It will be tough to wait that long; trust me, I speak from experience.

Coconut Bread (in cupcake form)

Recipe adapted from Lizardbreath Creations

Ingredients:

• 1 cup shredded coconut, sweetened


• 2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1/2 cup granulated sugar


• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar


• 1 tbsp baking powder


• 1/4 cup vegetable oil


• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk


• 1 egg


• 1 tsp vanilla

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare muffin tins by lining with paper liners.


2. Sprinkle a little of the shredded coconut in the bottom of each cupcake liner.


3. Mix the coconut, flour, sugars, and baking powder in a large bowl.


4. In another bowl add the oil, coconut milk, egg and vanilla. Mix together well.


5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just incorporated. Pour into the prepared muffin tins. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (start with about 12-15 minutes).


6. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack until cooled completely.


7. Once cooled completely, with a sharp knife cut a small tunnel into each cupcake and then pipe full with lemon curd. Pipe coconut icing liberally onto each cupcake in order to cover the hole where the curd was piped in.

For the icing I just dumped ingredients into my mixer bowl without measuring (bad me) and tasted until it was yummy. If you are one of those measuring types, feel free to use this vanilla icing and instead of the vanilla extract, add coconut extract.

Happy Baking my Friends! Hope you're ready for another busy week.