Coconut Cupcakes

Fathers Day is here! A lot of people go out for breakfast, lunch or dinner when these kind of days come (like Mothers Day or Valentines Day, etc, etc). However, we who enjoyed home cooking, choose not to. We'd rather just cook at home and just chill. What's better than that? Enjoying good home cooking and not having to care about much at all; That's awesome!

My dad wanted to have some of his favorite foods for Fathers Day. We slow cooked our favorite BBQ Pull Pork, we made Baked Beans, Potato Salad and Texas Toast. It was a lot of food to begin with, and I didn't really think I was going to bake anything. However, when my Nana and Grandpa came over for fathers day, and saw that I didn't bake anything, they were a bit upset. So, I decided that I'd come up with something good to bake.

I didn't really want to bake a cake; I didn't want to have something that not everyone would eat.. So I decided to bake cupcakes! My dad likes coconut, so I thought that it'd be a nice treat for him; And something that won't ruin is day of to much calories (He's a calorie counter like me). I remember seeing this recipe while watching Barefoot Contessa one day and they sounded so good!! I kind of altered mine to be without butter, and it turned out really good. Really, really good! The coconut went well with the cream cheese icing. It was really light and delicious.

This was entered into AFAM for June '08.

Recipe

For the Cupcake

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup shredded coconut

For the Cream Cheese Icing

8 ounces cream cheese, cold
4 ounces butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners sugar
Milk to thin


1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with cupcake papers.

2. In a large bowl, beat together the oil, sugar and eggs until thick and smooth. Beat in vanilla. In a medium bowl, shift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; add to the liquid mixture and beat until smooth. Beat in yogurt. Fold in coconut.

3. Scoop batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 22 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack.

4. For the icing, beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the vanilla extract; then confectioners sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, if icing is too thick.

Makes 12-15 Cupcakes