Pina Colada Cupcakes

Sweet, slightly sticky, and with a slight crunch on top, these cupcakes are great if you're looking for something with a tropical flare. They have a sophisticated look to them that will wow your guests first visually, and then when they bite into them and realize this isn't just an ordinary cupcake!

For the Coconut Cupcakes:
2 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar (to try and impart some dark flavor, since I wasn't using rum)
1/2 tsp of salt
2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder

For the Pineapple Glaze:
2 cups pineapple juice (This is NOT the same as the syrup that comes in a can of pineapple)
2 Tbs of sugar

For the Pina Colada Frosting:
1 pinch of salt
3 Tbs room temperature butter
3 Tbs and 2 tsp coconut milk
1 Tbs Pineapple Glaze, (which will be made before the frosting.)
4 cups powdered sugar

For A Garnish:
Organic Coconut

Line a muffin tin with cupcake papers. The recipe makes exactly a dozen cupcakes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Open your can of coconut milk; it will probably be separated. Mix it together with a fork to get it back to how it is supposed to be.

Add the eggs, white and brown sugar, and salt into a bowl and mix well.

Add the butter and the milk to a saucepan. Heat until the butter is melted and the milk slightly bubbles on the edges.

Slowly add the milk/butter mixture into the eggs/sugar mixture, mixing all the time to keep the eggs from scrambling.

Add the flour and baking powder, mix until everything comes together.

Divide the batter between your twelve cupcake papers and then place in the oven. They take about 15 to 20 minutes to cooks. Once they bounce back slightly when tapped they are done.

While the cupcakes are cooking, work on the glaze (It's actually a pineapple reduction, but since I'm using it as a glaze I'm going to call it that). Add the pineapple juice to a pan and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until it is about 1/4 the original volume. It should coat the back of a spoon like a good sauce will. It will have a darker flavor to it, but should not taste burnt. Then add the sugar (if you add the sugar while you simmer it you might run a greater risk of burning it, because sugars love to burn.)

Set aside the 1 Tbs you need of this for the frosting.

One your cupcakes are out of the oven, take a toothpick or a small knife and add holes in the top for the glaze to absorb into. (If using a knife like I did {I was sorely out of toothpicks} don't punch all the way to the bottom, but just a 1/4 inch or so into the surface.)

Add some of your glaze on top of each one. (Mine was slightly thinner than I would have liked it, I didn't boil it quite enough. But it still worked quite well and got thicker after a few minutes on the cupcake.)

I then went and poked a few more holes into the top, to help push down the pineapple reduction.

If you have leftover glaze left, go ahead and save it to use to decorate the tops of the cupcakes later.

For the Pina Colada frosting, add the wet ingredients and the salt into the bowl, mix well, and then add the powdered sugar. Slowly bring them all together, so that you don't get powdered sugar everywhere. Once done it should be a nice thick piping consistency. If it needs to be thicker add more powdered sugar, if you need to thin it down add either more pineapple reduction (if you still have extra) or coconut milk, whichever your personal taste is.

I decided I wanted to add some toasted coconut on top of my cupcakes, so I made some. I used organic unsweetened coconut, put it in a dry pan, and cooked it until dark brown.

It adds this crunch to the top of the cupcake, which is a nice contrast with the soft cake and frosting.

Put the frosting in a piping back and swirl it onto the cupcakes. If you have leftover glaze, you can drizzle it on top. Then sprinkle with the coconut.

Now you have some seriously yummy looking cupcakes. So share, or horde them, whichever way you are so inclined. I hope you enjoy!