Celebrating a First Birthday with Tropical Cupcakes

No, that's not one of my cupcakes - just in case you were wondering.

We are knocking out numbers 18, 19, and 20 folks all for one birthday bash.  My niece turned 1 year old on September 9th, 2011.  Here birthday theme was a Hawaiian Luau.  It was only appropriate that my contribution to the whole affair be cupcakes.  Originally I started out with one flavor - Coconut Cupcake with Pineapple Buttercream Frosting (think Pina Colada).  But since I had to make a plethora of cupcakes for the party I decided to stick with the coconut base and mix up the frostings.  Thus creating three variations - Rum Buttercream Frosting (not entirely appropriate for a 1 year old birthday party but rum goes with coconut so let it be), Blueberry Buttercream Frosting (remember, I had copious amounts of blueberries on hand), and the aforementioned Pineapple Buttercream Frosting.

Coconut Cupcake Recipe:

3/4 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cup of sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

1 can of coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups of flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup of coconut shavings

Prep:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F

2. Cream the butter until light and fluffy.  Add sugar and cream until fluffy again.

3. Add eggs one at a time.

4. In a separate bowl combine remaining dry ingredients.

5. In another bowl combine coconut milk and vanilla and mix together.

6. Alternate adding dry ingredients and coconut milk mixture.

7. Fold in the coconut.

8. Bake for 22-25 minutes.

The cupcakes turned out perfect and they tasted great!  The frosting - the favorite was the rum buttercream.  Delicious!  Here are the recipes:

Rum Buttercream

1/2 stick butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

2 teaspoons rum (it called for 1...and I think I probably put more like 3)

Pineapple Buttercream

1 stick butter

4 cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons crushed pineapple

1 to 2 tablespoons pineapple juice

(note: I rarely use the amount of sugar they call for, I like less.  I used canned pineapple...next time I'd go with fresh)

Blueberry Buttercream

1 stick butter

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon heavy cream

3 tablespoons pureed blueberries (1/2 cup whole)

(note: I would add more sugar to this recipe - the pureed blueberries made it a bit runny)

 One last shot just to be festive.