Hi, hi! What's happening??! You ate a bunch of tomatoes and stone fruit over the week? It was actually warm enough where you are to go to the beach??! Wow. That sounds like the dream : ) Reuben and I had a pretty chill weekend. We watched a whole season of Weeds, stocked up on our asian sauce collection, picked up our Japanese knives from the knife sharpening store, and went grocery shopping. Pretty boring, pretty chill, but just wanted I wanted. Oh, and I washed a mountain of dishes that I accumulated from cooking lunch for my entire office. Gosh. It was super fun but it was so exhausting. My tiny kitchen isn't quite fully equip to handle catering lunches for parties of 30 people. Thankfully, Reuben let me store some veggies in his secret beer fridge! I mean, we've had parties at our apartment before where we've fed 30 people, but being able to transport all the food across town in an Uber is quite a technical challenge. But somehow I got all the food to the office and everyone was happy and full! Chicken wings, soba noodle salad, and onigiri are crowd pleasers if you're also planning on making lunch for your entire office. I'm going to have to look into where in our 800 sf apartment we can fit an extra refrigerator and deep freeze before I volunteer to make lunch again!

Shall we talk cupcakes?

Okay. Before you say anything... I know what you're going to say. These cupcakes have a striking resemblance to the poop emoji. BUT. That probably wasn't the best word choice... but, they taste like the absolute opposite of poop! I wasn't planning on making them look like poop. I was having some buttercream and piping tip issues with my original decoration plan and had to resort to something a little more simple. My buttercream piping skills are a little poopy... sorry, this isn't the most appetizing language... I'll stop using that word. For real though, these coconut cupcakes are so tasty. They are light as air, perfectly slightly sweet, and the texture is so soft and tender. I think this is the best cake batter I've ever made. EVER. The buttercream is also super light and fluffy. It's full of mango flavor. When you take a bite out of the whole cupcake it makes you feel like you're at a baby shower in Hawaii or Thailand. I've never been to a baby shower in Hawaii or Thailand but I imagine that these cupcakes would be there and that I would hang around the dessert table the whole time so I could keep eating these.

I hope you make them sometime and I hope you make them look less like poop!

Coconut Cupcakes with Mango Buttercream

makes 18 cupcakes

Cupcake Materials:

1 3/4 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar + 2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup full fat canned coconut milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut shreds
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites
1/3 cup toasted coconut shreds

Mango Buttercream Materials:

1 cup softened unsalted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 mango - you need about 3/4 cup of puree
pinch of salt
orange + yellow food coloring

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, 3/4 cup suagr, and salt in a large bowl. 

2. Whisk together coconut milk, vanilla, canola oil, and egg yolks in a separate medium bowl. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in shredded coconut and set aside.

3. Add egg whites into the bowl of your standmixer with the the whisk attachment. Whisk on medium high until soft peaks form, about 4 minutes. Add in 2 tbsp sugar and whisk for another 3-4 minutes, until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the egg whites into the batter until incorporated.

4. Line the cupcake tins with wrappers and scoop batter into each tin until they are 3/4 of the way filled. Bake for 13-14 minutes until done. These bake really fast so keep a close eye on them. You don't want them to brown that much, if at all.

5. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then remove to completely cool on a wire rack.

6. While the cupcakes cool, make your buttercream. Score and scoop out the flesh of one mango. Puree in a food processor or immersion blender until smooth. Place softened butter in the bowl of your standmixer with the paddle attachment on. Mix butter on medium speed for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the mango puree and salt. Mix on low speed while also gradually adding in the powdered sugar. Once all the sugar has been added, increase the speed to medium and mix until the butter cream is light and smooth. If it looks like it's curdled, it's okay! Just keep mixing! After mixing for 4-5 minutes it should be smooth. Add in food color and mix again until color is evenly incorporated. Fill a piping bag with butter cream and decorated as you wish.

7. Top with toasted coconut shreds.