I’m referring to coconut. Like cilantro, Brussels sprouts or sushi, coconut is one of those foods that people feel strongly about in one direction or the other. Fortunately I’m pro-cilantro, Brussels sprouts and coconut. No, I don’t like sushi. It’s a raw fish and/or seaweed thing. But that’s not the point today.

Today the point is this: If you love coconut, you will love these coconut lime cupcakes. Assuming that you like limes. But I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who was opposed to limes.

I’ve made these cupcakes numerous times in the past and they’re frequently requested by people who have tried them before. I think they’re second only to carrot cupcakes. This most recent batch was made for a cookout on the 4th of July. Joel requested that I make them despite the fact that we didn’t know how the people at the cookout felt about coconut. Fortunately I think most of the people liked coconut and the rest of them just had to go without a delicious cupcake. Their loss. I also shared some with a neighbor and her mom liked them so much that she requested the recipe. And since I needed to post something on my website anyway, here it is!

The recipe for these is from the fantastic Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook. If you haven’t ever flipped through this cookbook, it’s worth doing just for cupcake ideas.

I did make a number of changes to the original recipe and my version isn’t vegan as I used real dairy products instead of soy ones. I’ve made them the true vegan way as well and really couldn’t tell the difference. The recipe below is my non-vegan adapted version as it’s a lot cheaper to make them this way. Also, the original called for coconut oil and quite frankly, I am not willing to buy coconut oil as it’s grossly expensive and these cupcakes taste plenty coconutty without it.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

Slightly adapted from recipe in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Makes 12 regular or about 40 mini cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup coconut milk (I use the light variety)
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp coconut extract (if you don’t have it, I’ve subbed extra vanilla before and all was well)
• 1 tbsp lightly packed, finely grated lime zest
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup sweetened coconut

Lime Buttercream Frosting:

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 tsp finely grated lime zest (I like lime a lot and I used more like 1 heaping tablespoon. But that’s your call!)

Optional topping:

• 1 cup sweetened coconut, toasted in the oven until browned and crunchy

Directions

Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cupcake pan with liners. If making mini cupcakes, you’ll probably want to bake these in 2 batches.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the vegetable oil and sugar. Add the coconut milk, milk, vanilla, coconut extract, and lime zest. Mix to combine.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until smooth. Add the coconut and mix to incorporate.
4. Bake for about 20 minutes for regular cupcakes and slightly less for mini cupcakes, until the cupcake top springs back when touched and a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean.
5. Cool completely on racks before icing.

Frosting:

1. Beat the shortening and margarine together until combined well and fluffy.
2. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes.
3. Add the vanilla and lime juice, beat for another 5 to 7 minutes or so until fluffy.
4. Add the zest and mix to distribute.
5. Chill until ready to use.

To Assemble:

1. Heap the frosting onto the cupcakes or pipe onto cupcakes using a pastry bag and decorating tip of your choice.
2. If using toasted coconut on top, sprinkle the cupcakes with the toasted coconut and press lightly so that it adheres to the frosting.
3. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

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No long, drawn out descriptions from me today. All you need to know is that you need to make this gingerbread cake with coffee icing. Why? Because it’s easy and delicious and I loved it even though I don’t particularly like gingerbread. With loads of spices, dark beer, coffee, cocoa powder and molasses, how could I not love it?

The recipe is from The Craft of Baking by Karen Demasco and Mindy Fox (which is a pretty cool cookbook that I’ll purchase someday soon). The actual recipe is for 18 cupcakes. I made a bundt cake instead because I currently don’t own any muffin tins for making cupcakes (that’s a long story for some other day). I didn’t alter the size of the recipe at all. Batter for 18 cupcakes is apparently exactly the right amount of batter for a bundt cake.

Other than making cake instead of cupcakes, the only change I really made was the use of porter instead of stout. Yes, I live on the edge when it comes to recipe alterations. I also skipped the candied ginger on top as I truly believe that would have been weird on a cake.

Since this is a lazy post and since NPR was kind enough to post the recipe on their website, I’m not posting it here.

P.S. If you’ve read this far and care, I have no wedding plans to blab about at the moment. We’re still figuring out the when and where.

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Actually, I’m not really writing a blog post. I’m just summing up 2009 with photos taken during the last 365 days.

First up are some of my favorites of the thousands of photos I took in 2009. It was really hard to narrow these down to just a handful of favorites and I hope to take just as many (or more) pictures in 2010!

Then there’s me through the year. Putting this together wasn’t so easy as both the boyfriend and I have discovered that we don’t take a whole lot of pictures of ourselves. We’re going to try harder next year…and the mosaic I create on 12/31/2010 will be easier to create!

I hope that everyone has had a great year and best wishes for 2010!

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As much as I love the fluffy buttercream frosting I’ve been making near constantly for almost 2 years, it was time to make a new friend in the frosting world. Maybe a wordly, sophisticated frosting that isn’t so reliant on powdered sugar? Swiss meringue buttercream frosting is that new friend and possibly a friend for life.

Swiss meringue buttercream is my new favorite frosting and it should be yours as well. The fluffy buttercream has been pushed aside for the not-too-sweet, super smooth and shiny Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. While the buttercream I’d been making called for about a million cups of powdered sugar, the new Swiss meringue buttercream calls for barely a cup. It’s a healthier option…if you can look past the copious quantities of actual butter in this frosting. I have. And so should you.

As my first venture into this new frosting world, I made the frosting to go with a batch of mini chocolate cupcakes. Both the cupcakes and the frosting recipes are from Martha Stewart‘s relatively recent Cupcakes cookbook. Just so you know, the One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes are pretty killer…and the recipe yields a LOT of mini cupcakes. 58 to be exact. It yielded so many cupcakes that we kept a bunch and both the boyfriend and I took lots of them to our respective offices…where they were met with high praise. Praise like “This is my favorite thing you’ve ever made!” and “It was so good, it made you want to slap your mother.” And it’s not like these people haven’t had lots of baked goodies from me in the past…the cupcakes were just that good.

Back to the frosting. For the mini chocolate cupcakes, I made a coffee version of the frosting following Martha’s careful instructions. Since then I’ve also made a batch of white cupcakes with a chocolate version of the frosting. Both versions are super-duper-amazingly delicious. Next I’ll try a plain version.

Let it be known that I made the frosting despite some old fears of screwing up what looks to be a fussy recipe. In fact, it was not a fussy recipe. It’s a little time consuming only because the mixer has to whip the meringue for a long time. Other than that, it couldn’t have been easier. I should probably note that in order to really make this frosting successfully, you should use a stand mixer. A hand mixer might work but you’ll be awfully tired of using it by the end. With the stand mixer, you can walk away and do other things while it’s whipping. If you’re like me, the other things you’ll do will probably be the dishes.

For the number of mini cupcakes I made, I prepared just a half batch of the frosting recipe shown below. Everything divided in half well other than the egg whites…so I used three of those. If you’re planning to use this frosting for a regular cake, make the full recipe. Or if you like your normal sized cupcakes heavily frosted with a bowl of extra frosting just to eat, make the full recipe.

One more comment: If you (or your office mates) love coffee, definitely try the coffee variation. My office mates actually ate their cupcakes in the morning…with their coffee.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

Makes about 5 cups

Ingredients

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Combine egg whites, sugar, and salt in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water.
2. Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips).
3. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, whisk until stiff (but not dry) peaks form.
4. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl), about 10 minutes.
5. With mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition.
6. Once all butter has been added, whisk in vanilla.
7. Switch to the paddle attachment, and continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl with a flexible spatula, and continue beating until the frosting is completely smooth.
8. Keep buttercream at room temperature if using the same day, or transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month.
9. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat with paddle attachment on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

Coffee Variation: Mix 2 tablespoons good quality instant espresso powder (do not use instant coffee) with the vanilla extract. Stir until espresso powder is mostly dissolved and add to frosting in step 6.

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Post title borrowed from a Ben Folds song of nearly the same name.

Last song I purchased from iTunes: When Will I Be Loved by John Fogerty & Bruce Springsteen.

Made for dinner tonight: Chicken, cheddar and onion quesadillas. The chicken was marinated with chipotles in adobo sauce & grilled with the onions before being turned into quesadilla filling.

Currently drinking: Nothing. But a glass of milk sounds good.

Playing on iTunes right this very second: Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen.

Currently reading: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson and Amarcord by Marcella Hazan.

Laughing about: The episode of Mad Men we just watched. We’re at the beginning of Season 2 and Joan is my favorite character. Tonight she discussed why crying in the break room is bad: “This is why I don’t allow crying in the break room. It erodes morale. There’s a place to do that, like your apartment.”

New to me, easy and delicious dessert I recently made: Tarta de Santiago (as pictured here). It’s a Spanish almond cake with a hint of lemon. Yum. Recipe here. I followed it almost exactly.

Song I can’t stop playing over and over and over again: 21 Guns by Green Day.

Currently knitting: Still nothing. But it’s almost cold enough for me to want to knit again. And I’m hankering for a project that will use some of the Noro Iro in my stash.

In need of: A new immersion blender. We had a generic one that mysteriously died/broke when I tried to puree black bean soup. I need to decide what brand to go with for the new one.

Playing on the iPod now: Something to Say by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I still love this song from the early 90s.

Will soon attempt to learn: Adobe Lightroom. It’s installed on my computer at work and I haven’t had a free minute or hour to learn how to use it yet.

Not getting enough: Sleep. I think the changing season has made me want more of it. And I still don’t know how to go to bed early.

Hyped up about: Autumn weather. I like the sorta warm, sorta cold days and I can’t wait for the leaves to change color.

Something I need to do tonight if it kills me: Decide what kind of cookies to bake tomorrow. Yes, it’s important that I decide this tonight.

Craving: A grilled hamburger. We walked around W&M yesterday and there was some sort of barbecue somewhere and the hamburgers called to me.

Trying to learn how to: Stop buying clothes that all look the same. It takes real effort on my part to buy shirts in different styles and to refrain from purchasing something I like in every color made in it.

Something I thoroughly enjoy: Random cussing in songs that don’t seem like they’d have them. Ben Folds and Glen Phillips are both good at dropping random f-bombs in the middle of a song and I love it!

Hell hath frozen over because: I gave up whipped cream on my Starbucks iced toffee nut lattes. And I’m drinking less of the lattes as they’re not as good without the whipped cream.

Best thing I’ve bought this month: New corduroy pants. I love corduroy pants and these Old Navy ones are pretty spectacular.

What I might be for Halloween: Lucille Ball. Or a devil. Or something else that can involve my red hair.

Still bragging about: The wedding cakes I made this summer. I’m proud of me for having the skills to do that.

Looking forward to: Next weekend and the possibility of our first (and last) camping trip to the Outer Banks this year.

Not looking forward to: More painting in our house. It looks nice when it’s done but the process is so long and tiresome…plus I’m only a moderately decent painter.

Playing on the iPod now: Fidelity by Regina Spektor.

Next up on the reading list: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan.

Can’t believe: That the new season of 30 Rock hasn’t started yet. I need an Alec Baldwin fix.

Absolutely, positively obsessed with: Trader Joe’s dark chocolate covered almonds with sea salt and turbinado sugar. Best new food I’ve tried in a long time. They’re good like dark chocolate covered pretzels are good…only better.

Next in the Netflix queue: More Mad Men Season 2, American Beauty and Away We Go when it’s released.

Must make time to: Get everything ready to get our kitchen inspected by the state so that I can legally bake things for money. After that’s done, there’s a business license to be purchased.

Trying to decide: How to spend less money in October. Less eating out? Less clothing purchases? Too bad it’s fall and I want new cold weather clothes.

Last dessert I baked: Caramel Apple Upside Down Cornmeal Cake from Better Homes & Gardens.

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Since my last post droned on and on without even mentioning what flavors the cake layers were, I figured I should write (boast) a little more about this wedding cake.

Some stats about this one:

• Meant to serve about 170 people. I don’t know how many people ate the cake but I think there were some leftovers.
• I made 5 cakes. Each with 3 or 4 layers. All told, I baked 19 layers of cake in 6″, 8″, 10″, 12″ and 14″ pans.
• The smallest cake was not part of the assembled cake you see here. It was boxed and set aside as the couple’s 1st anniversary cake. In all honesty, the thought of a 5 layer cake scared me.
• Three kinds of cake were made: lemon cake with lemon buttercream frosting and raspberry jam filling, almond cake with almond buttercream frosting and strawberry jam filling and chocolate cake with mocha buttercream frosting.
• It took me 4 evenings and part of 2 weekend days to prepare and assemble the cake. Baking the actual cake was the easiest part.
• A sampling of the ingredients used: 12 pounds of powdered sugar, 2.5 pounds of butter, 2 pounds of margarine, several cups of cocoa powder, 12 pounds of granulated sugar, 12 pounds of flour, more than a gallon of whole milk, nearly 1 large bottle of lemon extract, 1 roll of gauze and 1 roll of waterproof tape (for my cut finger), 4+ dozen large eggs, 10 pounds of fondant and nearly a roll of parchment paper.
• It took 2 online orders from Joann.com, 1 other online supply order, 2 trips to Michael’s, 1 trip to Hancock Fabrics and 3 trips to the grocery store to obtain all of the needed supplies and ingredients. I’ll plan better next time.
• The pieces you have to slice off the cake to make it level make a nice dessert when layered trifle-like in a dish with extra frosting.
• As mentioned in the last post, there was a lot of stress and a few tears involved. And some restless sleep. If I’d had some anti-anxiety medication or sleeping pills, I probably would have used them.
• I’ve been asked how the cake was assembled. It’s stacked on half inch tall cake drums made of cardboard and there are wooden dowels in the cakes to support the weight of the stacked layers.
• I was also asked how we transported the cake to the reception site. Very carefully. In boxes on the floors and seats of my Camry. With the air conditioner blasting out the coolest air it could muster. If I were to start doing this all the time, I think a station wagon or a mini van would be a good vehicle to own.

In the end, it was worth all of the literal blood, sweat and tears. I even think it was worth it enough that I’m willing to do it again (and again and again). I think I’m even willing to sacrifice some of my precious free time to do it. With time, I think I could bake a little faster and work more efficiently. The anxiety over doing a good job might even lessen after a while. So…if you know anyone in the vicinity of Williamsburg, Virginia that needs a wedding cake, I might just be available!

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Disclaimer: Before I write this post, let me reiterate the name of this site. It’s called The Boastful Baker. Please keep the word “boastful” in mind as you read this particular post. If you don’t want to listen to me brag, stop reading now.

As you might be able to tell from these photos, I made another wedding cake. My second one. The cake for my sister’s wedding in July was for about 75 people. This one was for about 170 people! 170 people! That’s almost 100 more people than the first cake! That’s a lot more cake.

Shortly after I agreed to bake my sister’s wedding cake, I was asked to bake this one. The now married couple worked with me at my old job. The bride read about my plans to bake my sister’s cake on Facebook and decided to offer me the opportunity to make her cake. She knew a little bit about my baking skills and aspirations and figured that it was a good way to get a slightly cheaper cake. She also thought it would be nice to give me, the fledgling cake baker, a chance to show off.

I hesitantly agreed. It may have taken a little arm twisting on the boyfriend’s part to get me to agree to it. It was one thing to agree to make my sister’s wedding cake. She’s my sister. If I screwed her cake up, she’s still my sister and life would go on. Making someone else’s wedding cake was a little more daunting.

Planning this cake was a breeze. The bride (and groom) were very flexible about the cake. We met just once to go over ideas and costs and agreed upon most things immediately. Everything else was easily taken care of with a handful of emails. I am sure that most wedding cake planning experiences are not this fantastic. I got lucky.

On to the cake…

I know this cake looks good. Getting it to look this good was not easy. It took many nights and a couple of days of work. It was stressful knowing that if something didn’t turn out right, I could ruin someone’s wedding. There may have been some yelling. Some cursing. Some name calling. Even some tears.

Baking the actual cakes was fairly simple. I baked over the course of 2 1/2 evenings and everything turned out well. I was a little scared about the largest cake layers not baking evenly…but they turned out just fine in the end.

Making the first few batches of frosting was also pretty easy.

Then the going got tough on the fourth night. I got cocky and thought I had plenty of time to finish the cake. The wedding was still almost 2 days away. All 5 of the cakes were baked. Two of them were already layered and crumb coated with icing. A lot of the frosting was made. So I took a nap. I’d been working hard and I deserved it.

I woke up about 2 hours later and got back to work. Very shortly after that, I sliced my thumb wide open. I may have been slicing the caps off of one of the cake layers in an irresponsible manner with my very sharp serrated bread knife. I’ll take full responsibility for my stupidity and the fact that my stupidity cost me a lot of valuable cake preparation time. I spent the rest of the night fretting about my finger and whether or not it would ever stop bleeding and whether or not I needed to go to the emergency room for stitches and whether or not I would be able to finish the cake in time!

In the end, my thumb ended up okay. It stopped bleeding, I got no stitches and the show went on. Slowly. With barely a day until the wedding, you would think I would be trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. No, I took it slow and lazy. I finished layering and crumb coating the other cakes. And then I took another long nap. And then I went shopping. It was now fairly late at night and the wedding was the following afternoon.

That’s when we realized that there was still a mess of work to be done. Five cake layers needed to be covered in fondant. But first the fondant needed to be colored. I also needed to cover 5 cake boards with satin and ribbon. The first fondant layer got screwed up. Screwed up enough that it was removed and thrown away. Which also meant I needed more frosting. Tensions were high and we were tired. We went to sleep knowing that we had to get up early the next day (the day of the wedding) and that there was a LOT of work left.

We did wake up early. And we raced the clock all day. More frosting was made, lots of fondant was rolled and carefully put on the cakes, cakes were chilled, a million little royal icing beads were dotted on the cake, last minute just-in-case flowers for decoration were procured, more little dots were applied, cake boxes were assembled, pearl colored dust was brushed on the dots, more anxiety set in, supplies for finishing the cakes on site were packed, hasty showers were taken and finally…the cakes were loaded into the car. With literally no time to spare. So little time to spare that I left both the iron and the hot glue gun plugged in.

We got to the reception site with all the cakes intact and started the sprint to the finish. If we wanted to catch the wedding ceremony, we only had about 45 minutes to assemble the cake. We missed the ceremony but at least the cake looked great and I could finally breath. Then I started repeating “I made that?” over and over again to both myself and the boyfriend. Even now, I can’t believe I made it. When the cake was in progress and I was stressed out, I thought there was no way in the world that it could possibly come together. But it did and it was phenomenal.

I then got to take compliments about the cake for the rest of the night. Amazingly, I don’t like being complimented in person. Lots of people came up to me to say “Wow!” and to tell me how good a particular flavor was. The best compliment of all was when the bride saw us for the first time that night and turned to give us a huge, approving grin and a thumbs up.

Another post will follow soon with cake details as I think some of you might be interested in knowing what actually went into baking this thing. You might even want to know what kind of cakes I baked.

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I made this. Really. I kind of can’t believe I did it. Planning the cake and buying the supplies and test baking kept me busy for weeks and weeks. Many test cakes were baked and frosted (and many samples were taken to both my office and the boyfriend’s office). Some test cakes were covered in fondant. Two of them were even stacked on top of each other just to make sure that we knew what we were doing for the real thing. Despite all of the samples and tests, I have to admit that I doubted I was going to be able to pull this off…right up until the morning of the wedding.

This cake was made for my younger sister’s wedding. She asked me to bake the cake shortly after she got engaged. I’m not going to lie…the thought of it kind of scared the dickens out of me when she asked. But I happily agreed to do it and hoped that I wouldn’t fail her on her big day.

I’m now proud to say I didn’t fail her. We (the boyfriend was a huge help in the entire endeavor) did it! A three tier wedding cake was successfully baked, decorated and transported an hour’s drive from my house.

Details about the cake: Each layer is a different flavor. The top was carrot cake with caramel buttercream frosting, the middle was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and the bottom was amaretto cake with amaretto buttercream frosting and a layer of strawberry jam. The bride and groom chose the carrot and red velvet layers and I chose the amaretto. All 3 layers were covered in a thin layer of vanilla buttercream and all of the layers were covered in Wilton fondant. Contrary to what you think you know about fondant, Wilton fondant is actually edible. I’ll even go so far as to say that it’s kind of tasty.

The ribbons around the cake were picked out by the bride. The flowers were a last minute decision that really worked. My mom grew all of the flowers used for the wedding and did all of the arrangements herself. The night before the wedding I asked her for a handful of flowers “just in case” I needed them for the cake. My other sister, Tasha, lent some moral support while were assembling the cake and arranged the flowers for me.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I might write a longer post later with more cake making details.

And just in case you’re interested in seeing something other than the cake (the bride perhaps?), here’s a slideshow of the handful of photos of the wedding I’ve shared on Flickr thus far. There will be more…many, many more. Probably a zillion more to be exact.

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