Lime and Coconut Cupcakes

Apologies for the slowness of posts lately, I don't always get the chance to take photo's when I'm baking.  Just lately I'm baking a lot with my little Nephew which is incredibly fun as he sings along when he's helping me but I don't get much chance to take photo's and when I do it's usually of him!

A few weeks ago I made these lime and coconut cupcakes, I had the idea because my Mum came home from work one day atfer discussing my baking with a friend and the friend told her how her boyfriend made the most amazing lime and coconut cake.  Lime and coconut is not a flavour that I've experimented with before, so I was up for giving it a go.

The cake mix is slightly adapted from my Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies book whilst the buttercream is of my own making.  At first bite I wasn't too impressed by them, I thought the cake a little on the dry side but after the next mouthfull and the next I couldn't get enough.  The more I ate the more I wanted, I think I definately ate more of them than anyone else in the house!

Lime and Coconut Cupcakes - Slightly adapted from The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies

125g margarine

1 tsp vanilla extract

Finely grated zest of 1 lime

145g caster sugar

2 eggs

80ml milk

60g desiccated coconut

188g self raising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180c and line your pan with cupcake cases.
2. Beat margarine, vanilla, zest, sugar and eggs until combined.
3. Stir in the milk and coconut. - I'm not going to lie, at this stage the mixture looked pretty gross so I was very surprised when it all came out ok!
4. Then stir in the sifted flour until combined.
5. Divide mixture amongst cases and cook for about 25 minutes.

Lime buttercream - my own recipe

75g margarine
150 - 200g sifted icing sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lime
Juice of half to 1 lime
Green food colouring - I just added a little for a nice pastel green shade

1. Beat margarine until soft.

2. Add in a few tablespoons of icing sugar at a time and beat until combined, leaving about 50g icing sugar left.

3. Beat in zest and half of lime juice.

4. At this stage its completely upto you what you do next, try the buttercream and see if you like the lime taste.  Add more if you need to.  Also tip the bowl on its side, if the buttercream drops quickly then add more icing sugar and beat again until the consistency gets a bit thicker.  If you plan on just spreading the buttercream on top of the cupcakes with a knife like I have then it doesn't need to be as thick as it would if you were piping.

Lastly add the buttercream to the tops of your cupcakes and cover with more desiccated coconut.  To make this easier you can pour the coconut into a cup and just dunk each cupcake upside down into it and tap off any excess.

As it's Red Nose Day on Friday I have a few idea's which I'm rather excited about.  So pop back Friday and as long as I don't have any major disasters I should have something fun to share!