Raspberry Jam, Toasted Coconut and White Choc Cupcakes

It occurred to me just the other day that I had never actually baked cupcakes with raspberries before, which seems a bit silly when you consider the name of my blog. But raspberri is just an old IM nickname that I am too stubborn to let go of and I like cupcakes. That's where the name came from, simple as that.

Tomred was coming back to work after taking time off to get hitched, his birthday had also passed in that time so it seemed like the perfect occasion to whip up a new batch of celebratory cupcakes. But I always want to try something different and I was not satisfied with just a new icing flavour or berry to throw into the mixture. The resultant cake was a product of far too many ideas that I crammed into the one little cake. It tasted bloody good though.

My original plan was to do plain raspberry cupcakes with a white chocolate icing. Then I thought about white chocolate chips in the cake and raspberries pureed into the icing. Then I decided I wanted some coconut in it. Toasted or not toasted? In the cake or in the icing? Or sprinkled on top? Arghh too many choices! In the end I settled on mixing toasted coconut into the cake batter, scooping out the middles of the cakes and filling them with raspberry jam and topping them with white chocolate icing and fresh raspberries. Mmm.

I had a feeling as I was putting these into the oven that they would be a winner. They are so good that they disappeared from the meeting room table in record time

Raspberry Jam, Coconut & White Choc Cupcakes
For the cakes:
Foolproof cupcake recipe (no vanilla)
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
Jar of good quality raspberry jam

For the icing:
150g white chocolate bits
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons warm water

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Spread coconut out evenly on a lined baking tray and toast in oven until light golden brown. Keep a close eye on the coconut, it will brown very fast and if even the tiniest part of it burns it will taste crap. Burnt is bad! Better to have some of it still white rather than risk burning any of it.

Place jam in a small saucepan with a tablespoon of water and warm on a low-medium heat, stirring until the jam becomes smooth and liquid. Remove from the heat and strain the seeds from the jam mixture. If you are lazy you can skip this step but I think the seeds intefere with the cake texture too much.

Follow foolproof cupcake recipe as per usual, mixing in the toasted coconut at the same time as the juice and flour. You should have an airy, thick, slightly sticky batter. Fill cupcake papers in a cupcake tray to about 1/2 full.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the tops are golden brown.

Remove cakes from tray and allow to cool completely on a rack. Take a small sharp knife like a paring knife and slice a cone-shaped chunk out of the middle of the cakes. Slice the pointy bottom bit of the cone-shaped chunk so there is room for the jam underneath.

Use a spoon or a piping bag to fill the centres of the cake with jam. I made a double batch of these cupcakes and ran out of jam with about 5 cupcakes to go and had to substitute it with strawberry jam :( If you want to avoid wasting jam then I would only use about 3/4 of a jar for a single batch.

Place the cut-off chunks back over the jam filled cakes.

For the icing, melt chocolate in a double boiler, or in the microwave for a minute if you are feeling lazy. Mix in sifted icing sugar and then mix with an electric beater on high while slowly adding the warm water until it reaches the consistency you want for piping. I also threw in some butter to mine but it didn't seem to do much except increase the calories so I left it out of the recipe. If you want a glossier, less stiff finish to your icing add some cream to the mixture.

Pipe icing onto cakes and top with a fresh raspberry if you feel like it :)

Gooey cupcake innards