Coconut Lime Cupcakes

The original recipe for these is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romano.  I make a few changes to make them safe for our food allergy requirements.  I'll post the original method,  and then list my changes.  In general, I have found these recipes to be so forgiving and flexible, I've been able to change pretty much anything I need to to make them safe, and they still turn out delicious!  The vegan community has saved our lives in this regard, especially and particularly Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  Her cookbooks and recipes are amazing, and I wish we could eat more of her food--but being nut, soy and gluten-free, a lot of vegan food is off-limits for us.  Fortunately for us, cupcakes are quite safe!

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

1/3 c coconut oil
3/4 c granulated sugar
1 c coconut milk
1/4 c soy milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 T lightly packed finely grated lime zest
1 c ap flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c unsweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cupcake pan with liners.

Get all your ingredients/tools out and ready  to go ahead of time, as this makes it easier to work with the coconut oil at the right temperature.

Melt the coconut oil in a medium bowl.  Mix in the sugar, then add coconut milk, soy milk, vanilla, coconut extract, and lime zest.  Combine well.

Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Mix until smooth.  Add the coconut and mix to incorporate.

Bake for 23-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Lime buttercream frosting

1/2 c shortening
1/2 c margarine
3 1/2 c confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 c fresh lime juice
1 tsp finely grated lime zest

Beat the shortening and margarine together until combined well and fluffy.  Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes.  Add the vanilla and lime juice, beat for another 5-7 minutes or so, until fluffy.  Add the zest and mix to distribute.

Ice the cupcakes generously, and roll in flaked coconut.  Place a decorative lime slice on top.

All right.  Those are the instructions as written.  Seriously, these are so flexible.  I didn't have any coconut extract, or enough shredded coconut, but I had coconut flour, so I subbed some in for the regular flour to increase the coconut flavor, and added it to the cup of shredded coconut to make up a full cup.  *shrug*  It worked!  Also, I have to use gluten-free flour, so our ap flour was Bob's Red Mill ap gluten-free flour.  I can't use soy milk, so I just used 1 1/4 c coconut milk (the full-fat, out of a can kind, not that crappy coconut milk "beverage").  Also, I didn't have any limes, so instead of lime zest, I just used a teaspoon of RealLime lime juice.  Again, it worked.  The cupcakes came out great!

I learned something about baking when I made these.  I had 8 of the cups filled when I noticed I hadn't gotten the bottom stirred in well enough, and there was still quite a bit of dry ingredients unmixed-in down there.  I just went ahead and stirred it in to the last bit, and put that batter in the last 4 cups.  Those cupcakes rose much better than the others.  Turns out you do need to have a minimally-thick batter to make the cupcakes rise appropriately.  I kind of thought this was the case, because if I follow regular recipes as written with my gluten-free flour, the batter is too thin, and the cupcakes come out concave.  I have been boosting the amount of flour in cupcake recipes for a long time, but this was the proof I needed to be certain that that was the difference!

So, the way I normally make these is basically the same, but all coconut milk and 1 1/3 c flour.  I do recommend replacing a small percentage (like 1/4 cup or so) of your flour with coconut flour--it actually makes for a lovely texture, as well as adding to the coconut flavor.  Also, I only use shortening (Spectrum brand) in the frosting, because there aren't any safe margarines for us.  It's just fine--in fact, I think I like it better than with a "butter" flavor.  Also, we usually halve the icing recipe--Isa apparently LOVES frosting.