Lime and Coconut Cupcakes

I think I’ve done these before and often I’ve filled them with raspberries because that simply makes a classic flavour combination. This time though, I’ve opted for filling them with blueberries mainly because I wanted them to taste slightly different. I go for a lot of coconut and before you’re asking whether I actually eat these, the answer is no because I do not like coconut myself. But, other people around me love it and so I opt for quite a bit. Let’s not dwell on whether I’ll eat them myself and get to the recipe then. This comes complete with a buttercream recipe for the icing and how I made it.

Ingredients

(All milk products can be swapped out for alternatives and eggs can be replaced with 1 spoon of applesauce per egg)

• 110g Caster Sugar
• 110g Butter
• 110g Self Raising Flour
• 2 Eggs
• 70g Desiccated Coconut
• 1 Lime (both zest and juice)
• 12 Blueberries

How To

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and fill a cupcake tray with 12 cases
2. Beat together the butter and sugar along with the lime zest and juice - this will make sure that the lime is perfectly blended into the mixture rather than clumpy
3. Blend in your eggs, one at a time to make sure they are evenly beaten in
4. Add your coconut and self-raising flour and mix again
5. Half-fill your cupcake cases (I use a tablespoon and a half)
6. Add a blueberry to each cupcake and push a very tiny bit until the blueberry is half-covered by cake batter
7. Bake for 15-18 minutes
8. Leave to cool

Time to make your buttercream…

Ingredients

• 150g Butter
• 300g Icing Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tube Orange Food Gel
• 20g Desiccated Coconut

How To:

1. Whisk your butter for 5 minutes until white and fluffy
2. Add your icing sugar and whisk together for another five minutes, adding the vanilla and food gel slowly as you go so that everything is equally spread
3. Fill a piping bag halfway with some of the buttercream and put a cylindrical nozzle on the end if you have one (otherwise do not use a nozzle, it’ll turn out the same way) and pipe in circles upon a completely cooled cupcake.
4. Sprinkle on some desiccated coconut
5. Refrigerate or the icing will melt.

Conclusion

As always, thanks for reading and supporting my little side hobby of baking. It feels good to get back to it finally. I felt like I had lost a part of myself last year when I quit baking entirely. It's lovely to do it again.