Can I be honest here? I am not a fan of coconut. But I knew my son would enjoy this, as would Mr. MarthaandMe’s office, so I made Martha’s Coconut Cupcakes, from her cupcake book, as part of the MS Cupcake Club. The cupcake part wasn’t a problem (once I threw myself on the mercy of the grocery store customer service desk to please locate the unsweetened coconut milk – it ended up being in the Thai section but they didn’t have unsweetened so I bought “lite”), but the frosting just about killed me. How hard can frosting be? Apparently quite challenging. First of all, let me explain I was not completely together as I made this. I had just read an ultrasound report regarding an immediate family member and was waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for a call from a Dr. I thought baking would distract me. Clearly, I was not together enough to do this.

I’ve made Martha’s 7 minute frosting before without a problem, but this time I just couldn’t do it. First of all, I thought I would experiment and see if I could use white Egg Beaters (not the yellow kind that are supposed to substitute for eggs)  instead of egg whites. That was a failure, so I got out the eggs. Somehow I got yolk mixed in with the whites and had to throw it all out. So for the third batch, I had the whites in the bowl and was mixing them. The sugar was boiling and was almost to the temp I needed. Then the phone rang. I was waiting for the Dr so I turned it off and answered it. Not the Dr. I tried again, heating it up and beating the eggs and just when I reached the right temp, you guessed it, the phone rang AGAIN. And again, not the Dr. So I heated it up a third time and this time successfully got it mixed into the egg whites. No surprise, of course, that this was just a bowl of liquid glop. It never set up as frosting. I finally gave up (really, I wanted to hurl it across the kitchen but I restrained myself). I dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the frosting liquid and then pressed the tops into the coconut. I got enough frosting to at least get the coconut to stick.

They actually look pretty good I think. I did choke a bite down just to sample this. It didn’t taste much like coconut (once I scraped the flaked coconut off the top). So that is my tale of the coconut cupcakes!

Can I be honest here? I am not a fan of coconut. But I knew my son would enjoy this, as would Mr. MarthaandMe’s office, so I made Martha’s Coconut Cupcakes, from her cupcake book, as part of the MS Cupcake Club. The cupcake part wasn’t a problem (once I threw myself on the mercy … Read more →