Happy Anniversary to my parents!

Thirty years ago on July 11^th, 1981, my wonderful parents made their vow to become husband and wife. Today my sister and I threw an anniversary celebration party for my parents and invited some of their closest friends to join us. It was a wonderful party with great food, good laughs, and many fun moments.

We celebrated this party at Piepers Gourmet Catering, a local restaurant/caterer in Columbus, IN. I must tell you; their food is delish! I frequently eat lunch there during the week, but when I saw that they also cater for parties, I got in touch with the owner and planned my parents’ anniversary party.

Here is some of the yummy food provided by PGC:

Caprese Salad

Greek Salad Bruschetta

Rosemary Lemon Chicken

Fruit Salad in Lime-Mint Syrup

Now for such a special occasion, I just had to make my own cupcakes! To make it more bite-sized, and of course, so people won’t feel guilty of eating several ;), I made mini-cupcakes. 

I used my favorite Red Velvet Cupcake recipe, the Lime Cupcake with Strawberry Frosting I made for my sister this past spring (and I tweaked the recipe to make it fluffier!), and a not-yet posted recipe for Coconut Cupcake (well, now it is posted below).

This Coconut Cupcake recipe is from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat recipe book, and it is one of my favorite cupcake recipes from this book! I got this book for Christmas this last year from my mother in law and I have been slowly making my way through the recipes. I did tweak the recipe just a tad bit (increased shredded coconut, decreased sugar, and changed egg requirements), but all in all it’s pretty much the same. It is fluffy, moist and wonderfully coconut-y! Any coconut lover MUST try this recipe! I dare you!!!

Coconut Cupcake with Coconut Frosting

Makes about 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cup sweetened shredded coconut (I use Brazilian shredded coconut)

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 ¼ cups sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Pulse shredded coconut in a food processor until finely ground, and whisk into flour mixture (if you use American shredded coconut; the Brazilian coconut is already pretty fine so I leave it as is).

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs and vanilla, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of coconut milk, and beating until combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each ¾ full. Bake rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester (good ol’ toothpick) inserted in centers come out clean, about 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven; turn out cupcakes onto wire racks and let cool completely.

Coconut Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 Tbsp meringue powder (optional)

2-3 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp coconut extract

Directions:

With an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat butter and meringue powder (optional) on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners’ sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. After every couple of additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium. This whole process should take about 5 minutes, and frosting will be very pale and fluffy.

Add coconut extract, and beat until frosting is smooth.

Happy 30 years mae and pai!

Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

Hi everyone! This past week was our city's spring break and I had the opportunity to be at home Wednesday-Friday from work! Man was I needing a little time off :) Not that I don't like my work, I absolutely love what I do, but sometimes you want to take a breather. Why the need to share about my past week, you may ask? Well, two wonderful things have happened: we have made huge progress towards potty-training our 20-month old daughter (super yay!!!!!!!!!!) AND my middle sister got engaged (double super yay!!!!!!!!!!). With the potty-training, well, if you have had any experience with children, you'd know that not having to change a diaper is an amazing thing. I definitely worked with my mom this last week on tips and ideas to make sure we could survive it. I must tell you, it takes an IMMENSE amount of patience and positive reinforcement to get through it. There were times I felt like giving up, but you know what? Since starting it Wednesday, today she finally started getting the hang of it and did not have any accidents! It's the little things in life, but it made me so proud to see her achieve yet another milestone in her life.

Okay, now to the other wonderful event - my middle sister's engagement! My soon-to-be brother-in-law (man that is a mouthful!) told us ahead of time that he was going to propose to my sister when she got back from her spring break from Florida on Friday evening. I told him I would make the celebratory cupcakes for this special occasion! I knew my sister likes fruity things, so I thought something fruity and sweet would be perfect. Since I had some limes at home, I searched for a recipe with limes on Foodbuzz and came across this wonderful recipe from Ryan Bakes. This recipe was wonderful: the cupcake had a nice hint of lime with the use of both the fresh squeezed juice and the zest. The frosting.... oh man, the frosting. It was strawberry heaven! So fluffy, smooth, sweet... just perfect. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it hehehehe.

*Note (7-9-11) - I modified the cupcake recipe a little bit since I made it again. Instead of milk, I used buttermilk. To counter-balance the buttermilk, I added 1 tsp. baking soda. The result? A fluffier cupcake! :D

So in honor of the newly engaged couple: to a life full of happiness and prosperity!

Lime Cupcakes:

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tsp. freshly grated lime zest

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare 2 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners. 

Blend butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 to 3 minutes); add eggs 1 at a time beating after each addition.  Sift flour, salt and baking powder.  Add dry ingredients to wet, alternating with milk. Be careful not to overmix.  Add in lime juice and zest and mix.  Fill each cupcake liner about 3/4 of the way full. 

Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 


For the Strawberry Buttercream:

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup fresh or frozen strawberry puree
pinch of salt

Directions:
In a food processor place fresh or frozen strawberries and puree the strawberries until there are no visible lumps. Set aside. *Note: I chose to not pass the puree through a strainer because I like my frosting to have the strawberry lumps, but you could make a strained puree if you so choose.

In a large mixing bowl add the butter, 2 cups of the sugar, pinch of salt, and a couple of Tbsp of the strawberry puree.  On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.  Continue to add more strawberry puree into the mixing bowl until you reach your desired amount of strawberry flavor.  Start by adding the puree Tbs. by Tbs., taking care not to add too much or your icing will be runny (which mine did a little, I got a tad strawberry-happy). Then, add the remaining 1-2 cups of powdered sugar and blend until your icing is stiff enough that it will be able to spread on your cupcakes.  If you've added too much puree, just add a little more powdered sugar to make your icing more firm.  

Cupcake and Buttercream recipes adapted from Ryan Bakes

Look at that bling!