Adventures in Sugarland: Pina Colada cupcakes

You may have heard last week, that I won these amazing I-zings from the lovely people at the Cake Decorating Company in a Facebook competition.

If you have not come across these before, they are a type of fondant icing, the type you dip and pour rather than the type you roll and they come in zingy fruit flavours and colours, tasting a bit like opal fruits (starburst) sweets. They come in four flavours - summer fruit, pineapple, lime and orange

Here in England the weather up until this week has featured grey skies and seemingly endless rain for week, after week, after week. This week, the sun has finally shone and we have had blue skies and balmy days putting me in mind of holidays, beaches and beach bars and of frozen cocktails in those beach bars. These thoughts melded with the pineapple i-zing producing these totally tropical pina colada cupcakes. The pineapple flavour in the i-zing is beautifully strong and I have ramped up the coconut flavour in the cupcakes to match. These little cupcakes are proper little flavour bombs a coconut cupcake topped with coconut frosting and then dipped into the pineapple i-zing

Coconut Cupcakes Recipe

(I have adapted this from a 1971 pamphlet for TREX)
If you don't want to use the trex, use 5oz margarine instead and leave out the milk

5oz /125g self raising flour
3oz / 100g caster / superfine sugar
4oz / 75g trex (vegetable fat)
2oz / 50g desiccated coconut
2 large eggs
3 tbsp milk or water
1 tsp baking powder

One of the best things about this recipe is you can make it using the all in one method, meaning you just put everything in a bowl and mix it together - preferably with an electric mixer. Easy. For best results try and get two eggs that, in their shells, together weigh about 5 oz / 125g.

Spoon the mixture into paper cases and bake for about 20 minutes at 350 F / 180 C

I also made some mini cupcakes that will cook in about 15 minutes at the same temperature

Coconut Frosting Recipe

3 oz / 80g butter, softened
3 oz / 80g coconut cream
10 oz / 250g icing sugar
A good splash of milk or cream

Beat together the softened butter and coconut cream until well combined.

Add about a third of the icing sugar and mix until all combined, then add the other two thirds, one third at a time.

If the mixture looks a bit dry add a splash of milk and cream and then beat for a couple of minutes. (The icing may still look a little grainy because of the coconut cream.)

Decorating

Load up your piping bag with a plain round nozzle (I used a Wilton 2B) and fill it with frosting.

Pipe the swirls on the cupcakes.
Start close to, but, not quite touching the edge and pipe a circle. Pipe another circle inside and on top and bring it up into a peak in the middle.

Time for the i-zing
You need to heat it a little to get it to a dipping consistency. See here for instructions.
Take a frosted cake, hold it upside down and dip it in to the i-zing. If you want to add sprinkles, sprinkle them on straight after dipping.
I was worried that the frosting would come off in the i-zing when I dipped them, it didn't! Don't leave it in there too long though and make sure it is not so hot that it melts your frosting.

That's all for today

Thanks for popping by and please call again soon

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