I made these cupcakes a couple of weeks ago and was delighted to have another excuse to make them. I used my usual coconut and vanilla cupcake recipe and took a leaf from Donal Skeehan with the addition of strawberry jam in the icing, the cupcakes are topped off with crumbled meringues and sliced strawberries, yummy. I doubled the ingredients to make about 21.
I preheated the oven to 190C and began with creaming 8oz of caster sugar with 8oz of unsalted butter. Once it had changed colour, and it was nice and light, I cracked in 4 eggs, one at a time, and I mixed them well with a spatula. I stirred in 2tsps of vanilla extract and 2tbsps of milk.
I measured out 8oz of plain flour and sifted this into the wet ingredients along with 2tsps of baking powder and 60g of desiccated coconut and mixed all the ingredients together.
I spooned about a dessertspoonful into each bun case and popped them into the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown. If you put in bigger spoonfuls they’ll bake in about 20 minutes. While the cupcakes were baking I made the strawberry icing by beating 10oz of butter with 16oz/1lb of icing sugar until well combined. I poured in 4tsps of hot water and 2 dessertspoons of milk and mixed until I could no longer taste the sugar, plenty of tastings are required for this part of course. Now the last time I made these I sieved the strawberry jam as per Donal Skeehan’s recipe, I decided not to bother this time as I don’t mind the taste of strawberry seeds. I spooned the strawberry jam into the icing and gave it another good beating with the mixer.
I took the buns out of the oven and let them cool on a wire track for a bit. I crumbled up a couple of meringues that I bought in Supervalu, I’m loving their different flavoured meringue nests at the mo, yum. I cut up the strawberries too and got cracking at the icing and decorating. Using a spatula I spread the icing on top of each of the cupcakes, ending with a little swirl on top. I sprinkled each cupcake with the crumbled meringue bits and topped them all off with a slice of strawberry.
The end result is a summery, sinful mouthful of sweetness, not too bad if I do say so myself. I’m off to have one now with a cuppa 😀
Fernweh with T 