The chap­ter titled “Coconut Cup­cakes” pro­vides a detailed recipe for mak­ing 18 to 20 large cup­cakes, high­light­ed by vibrant fla­vors and tex­tures thanks to the inclu­sion of shred­ded coconut and a creamy icing.

To start, the ingre­di­ents for the cup­cakes are list­ed: ¾ pound unsalt­ed but­ter at room tem­per­a­ture, 2 cups sug­ar, 5 extra-large eggs (also at room tem­per­a­ture), 1½ tea­spoons of pure vanil­la extract, 1½ tea­spoons of pure almond extract, 3 cups all-pur­pose flour, and leav­en­ing agents like bak­ing pow­der and bak­ing soda. Addi­tion­al­ly, ½ tea­spoon of kosher salt, 1 cup of but­ter­milk, and 14 ounces of sweet­ened, shred­ded coconut are essen­tial for the bat­ter. The recipe con­cludes with a sug­ges­tion to top the cup­cakes with Cream Cheese Icing, which is intro­duced in the fol­low­ing sec­tion.

Bak­ing instruc­tions begin with pre­heat­ing the oven to 325 degrees. The but­ter and sug­ar are creamed in an elec­tric mix­er until light and fluffy, rough­ly five min­utes. The mix­er is run on low as the eggs are added one at a time, ensur­ing that the bowl is scraped down after each addi­tion. Once the vanil­la and almond extracts are includ­ed, the dry ingre­di­ents (flour, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda, salt) are sift­ed sep­a­rate­ly and then added in three parts to the but­ter mix­ture, alter­nat­ing with but­ter­milk. Care is tak­en to mix only until just com­bined, fol­lowed by fold­ing in 7 ounces of shred­ded coconut.

The prepa­ra­tion con­tin­ues by lin­ing a muf­fin pan with paper lin­ers, fill­ing each cup to the top with the bat­ter, and bak­ing for 25 to 35 min­utes. The cup­cakes are done when light­ly browned on top and a tooth­pick insert­ed comes out clean. After cool­ing in the pan for 15 min­utes, they are trans­ferred to a wire rack to cool com­plete­ly before frost­ing with the icing and sprin­kling the tops with coconut.

For the Cream Cheese Icing, which com­ple­ments the cup­cakes per­fect­ly, the ingre­di­ents include 1 pound of cream cheese, ¾ pound of but­ter, vanil­la and almond extracts, and 1½ pounds of sift­ed con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar. The icing is pre­pared by blend­ing the cream cheese, but­ter, and extracts before incor­po­rat­ing the sug­ar until a smooth con­sis­ten­cy is achieved. This rich icing adds a lus­cious fin­ish to the coconut cup­cakes.