Coconut Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting HAPPY EASTER!

In the spirit of Easter I made Coconut Carrot cupcakes yesterday. I love carrot cake. I love the warm cinnamon in them and the texture. I added coconut because, well I love coconut too. It added another level of texture to the cakes along with the shredded carrots.  

I could have eaten these with no icing but as you can see, I didn't. It wouldn't have been as Easter-y. Here is what I did- 

4 beaten eggs

2 cups sugar

2 cups AP flour

2 tbsp baking powder

1 heaping tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 cups shredded carrots

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cooking oil

1/4 cup coco lopez

1 cup shredded coconut

Mix the eggs, carrots,vanilla, oil and coco lopez. In a separate bowl, combine, sugar, flour,salt, baking soda and powder and cinnamon. Add dry mixture in slowly and whisk all together. Finally, fold in the coconut., Its a very thick batter. I made 18 cupcakes with it. Baked for 20 minutes @ 350- cooled on wire racks. 

I made a cream cheese frosting which consisted of 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, 6 ounces of light cream cheese, 3 cups powdered sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla. I split the frosting into two bowls and dyed them - one bright pink, one yellow. Then in another little bowl, I took about 1/2 cup of shredded coconut and added about 3 drops of green food coloring and mixed it up with a fork. I frosted the cupcakes and topped with a little coconut to make it look like grass. Topped with a few Easter colored M&M's. These were moist and rich. Like I said earlier, they'd be good even without any frosting. 

Coconut Almond Chocolate Cupcakes

This is my play on an Almond Joy candy bar, one of my favorites.  I made an almond chocolate cake, that I filled and topped with coconut cream. Here's what I did:
for the cake- 
1/3 cup butter softened
2 tsp of almond extract
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp each of baking soda and powder
2 small eggs
1/2 strong cold black coffee
1/4 cup milk
1/2 dark cocoa
This batter was so freaking good, I swear I licked the bowl and every spoon & spatula I used to make it. The combination of chocolate with the almond and bit of coffee was phenomenal!  It made 12 cupcakes- I used the cutest liners too, they are zebra but you can't tell in the pic b/c they don't stay bright. I wish they made more foil stay brite liners in patterns like this :(
I baked these at 350 for 20 minutes. Removed from pan and let cool on a wire rack.


For the coconut cream:
1/3 cup softened butter
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup of powdered sugar
6 tbsp of coco lopez
1/3 cup whipping cream
I beat everything together till smooth.

If you don't know what coco lopez is, it's a cream of coconut that you find in your mixers/drinks section in the grocery store. It's used to make pina coladas and its very thick and creamy. It gives amazing coconut flavor and you can find it in every grocery store. 


Once the cupcakes were cooled- I took about 1/4 cup of my icing and put it into a small piping bag with a small tip. I inserted it to the top of the cupcake in the middle and filled it. You could sort of see the cupcake swell and that's how I knew to stop filling.
Then I piped the rest of the icing onto each cake using a larger tip. I garnished them each with an almond and a little but of coconut flakes that I toasted in a pan.
I don't want to give these away, they are awesome. But, summers coming so I must behave!



Also wanted to take this time to show off Charlotte in her awesome new apron she got for her bday. It's beyond adorable! My house looks so messy in this pic but it was early and I hadn't straightened up yet.