I finally got around to finish the cupcakes I started to make two weeks ago for my dad’s birthday (woops!). I was going to make your standard German chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting out of a box and a can, but he wanted cupcakes and I didn’t want to deal with frosting cupcakes with that goopy stuff. I asked the advice of my friend, Tina, who blogs at Sugarbean Bakers, telling her I wanted to do a buttercream version of that frosting, complete with the coconut and toasted pecans. She pointed me in the direction of her Caramel Buttercream Frosting recipe, and I went from there.
I didn’t have any caramel ice cream topping, so I opted to make my own with butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and heavy cream. I Googled a recipe and picked basically the first one that came up (here’s a link to the recipe I used). I mixed up the caramel sauce and made the buttercream and only then did I find out that I did not, in fact, have any coconut in the house. So I put the icing in the fridge and decided to finish the cupcakes when I got around to buying coconut. Dad’s birthday is right at Thanksgiving, so we had plenty of sweet treats already made and we already had our plans made for getting together for the entire week. At any rate, this is why it’s been more than two weeks and I am just today finishing the cupcakes.
One boxed German chocolate cake mix and 2.5 weeks later, I finally have cupcakes and frosting and coconut. I just tossed a cup of coconut into the frosting and beat the heck out of it with the electric mixer for a little bit. Meanwhile, I chopped some pecans and threw them in the oven to toast for about 5 minutes. I need to work a bit on getting my buttercream a little bit fluffier and a little less sturdy for a project like this, but it tastes AMAZING.
Here’s the long-awaited product–I DID sample one, and it was delicious:
Presentation: 3 (I’ll work on that.)
Easy to make: 7
Taste: 10+ (they’re soooo yummy!)
heatherygoodness 