Coconut and raspberry frou-frou cupcakes

I see these as the poodles of the cupcake world; the strange thing is that I can’t really explain it any further – you’ll either see what I mean or you won’t! When I read the recipe it was like ticking off a list of all my favourite ingredients: coconut, raspberries, cream cheese and butter.


These are show-stoppingly pretty but really not that difficult to make. If you can make a cupcake and you can make frosting the rest is window dressing. What they do require is time and care to assemble.

The cupcakes don’t dome hugely on baking but that’s good as it gives you a nice flat surface to decorate:


The recipe said to use frozen raspberries but the supermarket had some gorgeous English Tulameen raspberries grown in West Sussex and, successfully managing to ignore the price, I knew they had to be mine. They were worth every penny - plump, sweet, juicy and flavoursome. A good raspberry has a price beyond rubies. Look at the raspberries on that!


One little cupcake ready for transit:


The coconut essence was tricky to find but I eventually bought it from Jane Asher, this is a good website for sugar and wafer decorations too.


Ingredients:
For the cake:

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
220g caster sugar
3 eggs
75g plain flour
35g self raising flour
40g desiccated coconut
80ml sour cream
150g raspberries

For the frosting:
60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
160g cream cheese, at room temperature
2 teaspoons coconut essence
480g icing sugar

For the decoration:
150g toasted flaked coconut
36 raspberries

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases.
- Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy. If the mix starts to curdle you can add a little of the flour to correct it.
- Stir in the flours, coconut and sour cream and ensure all the ingredients are well combined.
- Carefully fold in the raspberries. Try not to break them and have them bleed into the mix – although some breakages are inevitable. I used a plastic spatula so as to preserve the raspberries.
- Spoon into the paper cases making sure that all the cupcakes have their share of raspberries.
- Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly. Mine took 35 minutes.
- Leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Once cool I kept the cupcakes in an airtight container to decorate the next day; you can of course decorate them as soon as they are cool if you so wish.
- Make the frosting by beating the butter, cream cheese and coconut essence until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the icing sugar.
- Remove the cakes from their cases and cover with frosting.
- Roll the edges in the coconut flakes then smooth the frosting on the top.
- Decorate the top with raspberries.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.