Carrots & Coconut

Ooey Gooey Carrot Cupcakes



Here's an Ooey Gooey Carrot Cupcake Recipe I adapted from the Read It and Eat It Blog. I love the texture and how pineapple further enhances the over-all flavour. However, I found the original recipe too oily so I reduced the vegetable oil proportion to 1/2 cup. This cupcake is tasty enough even without frosting!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tb ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 Tb vanilla
• 3 cups shredded carrots
• 8 oz. crushed pineapple, juice drained but reserved
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
  

Preheat oven to 350. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine eggs, both sugars, buttermilk, oil and vanilla and mix until well combined. Add in spices and other dry ingredients. Stir in carrots, pineapple and nuts by hand. Batter will be quite runny, but do your best to scoop it into muffin pans lined with cupcake papers. Fill the cups almost to the top because batter does not rise much. Bake for 20 minutes, until browned on top.
Dreamy Coconut Cake

Truly my favourite cake. It reminds me of angel wings. Delicious layers of yellow cake covered with fluffy, white frosting. So dreamy, so airy, so heavenly!

Ingredients:

Yellow Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, stirred before measuring
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Cream sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add half of the flour mixture then half of the milk. Add vanilla. Mix until blended; add remaining flour and milk and beat until smooth. The batter will be thick. Spread batter in two greased and floured 8-inch layer cake pans or a 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Bake at 350° for 25 to 35 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly touched near center.

White Mountain Frosting

2 large egg whites

1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine sugar, corn syrup and water in a 1-quart saucepan. Cover and heat to a rolling boil over medium heat. Uncover and cook, without stirring, to 242*F (115*C) on a candy thermometer or until a small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water forms a ball that flattens when removed from water. Cooking time can take between 4 to 8 minutes.

Meanwhile using an electric mixer at high speed, beat egg whites in a medium bowl just until stiff peaks form. Reduce speed to medium and while beating constantly, very slowly pour hot syrup in a steady, thin stream into the egg whites. Add the vanilla and continue beating at high speed for about 10 minutes until stiff peaks form.

Cover yellow cake with white mountain frosting. Sprinkle and cover with sweetened coconut.