baking: honey-coconut cupcakes

honey-coconut cupcakes

Ingredients...

• 1/2 cup softened butter (take butter out from fridge a couple hours before baking)
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1/3 cup of shredded coconut 
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2/3  cup of milk

How to...

1. first preheat oven to 350 (for any first time bakers, 350 is like the universal temp for most cakes).
2. beat together butter and sugar until creamy. add eggs one at a time. add vanilla, honey, and coconut.
3. now for the dry ingredients. it’s best to stir them all together in a separate bowl. add a bit at a time to the liquid mixture. half a cup at a time is what i do. then add milk.
4. place cupcake cups into cupcake/muffin tin. with an ice cream scooper or spoon, add mixture to cups. depending on how much you fill the cupcake the recipe should yield 10-12 cupcakes.
5. place in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes. a baker’s tip of mine that i learned years back was to place a pan of water in with the cupcakes to make sure they come out moist. also make sure to do the toothpick test (stick a tooth pick into a cupcake, if it comes out clean its done but if it comes out wet it needs more time.). oven temps tend to differ depending on oven so test!
6. let cool before placing on a cooling rank. cool awhile longer before frosting, i usually cool overnight because cold cupcakes are easiest to frost.
7. you can use store bought frosting or make your own. i’ve found that it’s easier just to buy it. i used store bought chocolate frosting and just used a disposable piping bag to frost. finally i topped with a raspberry and sprinkled red sprinkles on top.  
8. lastly, eat and enjoy!

***if anyone is counting points, one cupcake is 6 ppv (for a batch of 12) or 7 ppv (for a batch of 10). this is without frosting. frosting is usually about 3 points. i'm convinced that the flexible fun 49 points were invented for sweets and booze. so have one!***