Toasted Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Mascarpone Buttercream
Makes 6cupcakes
Ingredients
Toasted Coconut Cupcakes
¼cup(57g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½cup(100g) granulated sugar
1egg, at room temperature
¾cup(90g) all-purpose flour
1/3cuptoasted unsweetened shredded coconut
½tspbaking powder
¼tspsalt
½cup(120ml) full-fat coconut milk
Coconut Mascarpone Buttercream
1/2cup(113 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6tbsp(85 g) mascarpone, at room temperature
2 to 3cups(240 to 360 g) powdered sugar
3tbspwhole-fat coconut milk
2tsppure vanilla extract
For Snow Globe Decorations
Cookie dough of your choice, shortbread, sugar cookie, or gingerbread will all work!; you will only need very little!
Clear hard candies, crushed
Holiday sprinkles
Royal icing
Instructions
Toasted Coconut Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease muffin pan or line with cupcake liners. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat unsalted butter and granulated sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg and beat until fully combined.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, toasted shredded coconut, baking powder, and salt.
Add half of the dry ingredients and coconut milk to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until just combined. Add the remainder of the dry mixture and mix until no streaks of dry ingredients remain.
Using an ice cream scoop, portion out cupcake batter into prepared pan. Bake for 14 – 16 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
Coconut Mascarpone Buttercream
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and mascarpone on medium speed until the mixture is smooth, about 1 minute. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Add the coconut milk and vanilla. Increase the speed to high and beat the mixture until it is smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Transfer the buttercream to a pastry bag fitted with a large round or open-star piping tip. Pipe two rings of buttercream on top of each cupcake.
For Snow Globe Decorations
Preheat oven to 350F.
In between two sheets of parchment paper, roll out your cookie dough to just a little under ¼-inch in thickness. Transfer the dough to the fridge or freezer for 15 minutes. Because we are punching out such thin cut-outs, you want to make sure your cookie dough is firm and won’t lose its shape when you are punching it out. Using a larger circle cookie cutter, punch out the circle and transfer it to a baking sheet. Using a smaller circle cookie cutter, punch out the centre of the cut out that is already on the baking sheet. This will become the border of your snow globe. I recommend punching out the smaller circle once your cut outs have been transferred to your baking sheet because it’s very easy for your thin cut outs to lose shape if you punch out the centres before transferring them!
Once you have all of your cut outs on the baking sheet, fill the cavity of each circle with crushed hard candy. Clear mints or blue Jolly Ranchers are great for this. The candy will melt during the baking process to form the ‘glass.’
Bake your cookies at 350F for about 6 – 7 minutes. Keep a close eye on your cookies since the cut outs are so thin and will brown quite easily. Once the cookies are ready, carefully remove them from the oven and allow the candy centre to set completely before removing them from the baking sheet.
Place one snow globe decoration on top of each frosted cupcake.