Margarita Cupcakes (Lime and Coconut Confections!)

Mmmm. My quest for summery cupcake recipes was totally gratified by this recipe that I slightly adapted from Marcianne Miller's book The Artful Cupcake (she called them "key lime" cupcakes). This little beauties are coconut cupcakes topped with lime curd and coconut buttercream. I was really satisfied with this recipe because not only did it attempt a coconut cupcake (these are so tricky to get the coconut flavour to actually come out) but it also taught me how to make curd - and sweet heavens this is way better than anything you could get out of a box and impressively easy (if you negate the fact that you have to squeeze about half a dozen limes for juice...and I don't have a juicer).

The cupcakes themselves are a little bland (I read review that would be the case, so I even added a couple of tablespoons of coconut extract, but no luck) - but they are totally just vessels for the super-tart lime curd. I decided to pipe a little coconut buttercream around the edges just to amp up the taste, which was great.

My only warning on these little puppies is they are SWEET. You wouldn't sit around and gobble down two in a row. Well, maybe if you skipped the buttercream and just left it coconut cupcakes with lime curd - but I'll give you all the recipes and you can decide for yourself.

Coconut Cupcakes
From The Artful Cupcake by Marcianne Miller
makes 24 cupcakes

3/4 cup shredded (sweetened) coconut (plus about 1/2 cup for topping, later)
1-1/2 cups (unsweetened) coconut milk
1 egg
3 egg whites
2-3/4 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cups sugar
2 tbsp. coconut extract

• Soak coconut in 1/2 cup of coconut milk, set aside
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees, paper 24 cupcake tins
• Sift flour, baking powder and salt - set aside
• Mix remaining coconut milk with egg and egg whites - set aside
• Cream the butter and sugar in the bottom of a big mixing bowl, then add soaked coconut and mix well
• Alternate wet (egg mixture) and dry (flour mixture) in three parts, mixing well until fully combined (this is where I finished by adding the coconut extract)
• Fill cupcake tins to half and bake 20-22 min (these are wet cupcakes, so they might need a few more minutes, but keep an eye on them). Use the clean toothpick test.

Lime Curd (I doubled this recipe. And it was a good idea because I think I ate half the batch right out of the bowl before I even got to the cupcakes.)

1 teaspoon water
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
Juice of 3 limes
Green food coloring
Zest of 1 lime
2 oz. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces

• Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in the bottom of a bowl and let soften
• In a heavy saucepan, whisk together egg yolks and lime juice
• On a medium heat, continue to stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until it steams and thickens. (you need to really watch at this step, you don't want to scorch the bottom, but it needs to get quite hot. I found I needed to stir the mixture with an oven mit because it "spit" a little bit - it was worth it)
• When you can draw your finger across the curd on the back of the stirring spoon and the line stays without dripping, take it off the heat.
• Strain the curd into a bowl with the gelatin and whisk well to incorporate
• Add a few drops of green food colouring until you reach the desired colour
• Add the zest and the butter and mix well until everything has been well incorporated
• Chill for at least 20 minutes until a spreadable consistency

Coconut Buttercream Icing

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
3 c. icing sugar, sifted
1/4 c. unsweetened coconut milk
2 tbsp. coconut extract

Mix coconut milk and extract together
Cream butter, then mix in two cups of icing sugar and beat until smooth
Add coconut milk mixture and beat again until smooth
Add last cup of icing sugar and beat until smooth

Assembly

• When cupcakes are cool, hollow out a little teaspoon in the middle and fill with lime curd
• Pipe coconut icing in stars around the lime green centre
• Top with coconut (toasted lightly 2-3 min under the oven broiler)
• Serve!