Coconut Cupcakes

Coconut Cupcakes

Here's another recipe from one of my eating buddy co-workers. Wendy made this for a year-end sort of potluck last year. Actually, our principal had the staff and their families over to his house; he bought pizzas--lots of pizzas; and everyone else was to bring a dessert to share. Oh. My. Gosh. There was an obscene amount of desserts there. Obscene.  I don't know what they did with the leftovers, and I don't want to know. One thing is for certain, though, that this was the best dessert there. Wendy made it in a 9"x13" cake pan, and it sort of fell apart when you scooped it out. It was so delightful though: cool, creamy, flavorful and sweet. Her recipe calls for mixing all of the cake ingredients right in the pan (add oil, then cake mix, water, eggs & 1 cup coconut & bake for 30-35 minutes). I made these for my sister-in-law's birthday, and I wanted to do half plain white cupcakes & half coconut cupcakes to make everyone happy and because I thought they would look cute.

Coconut Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 box white cake mix
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups coconut, divided
• 7 oz cream of coconut (I used Coco Real brand that comes in a convenient squeeze bottle)
• 1 tub Cool Whip

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a mixing bowl, mix cake mix, oil, eggs, water, and 1 cup coconut. Fill 24 paper-lined cupcake pans with batter. Under fill cups, as opposed to over filling them, because if they get too tall, the cream of coconut will slide off later.

Bake at 350° for 18-23 minutes.

Remove from oven & with fork punch holes into cupcakes.

Pour about 1-2 tablespoons cream of coconut over cupcakes while hot.  Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Mix cool whip & 1 cup coconut.  Spread about 2 tablespoons onto each cupcake.  Store in refrigerator.
Makes 24 cupcakes