Ever since I can remember, I have been obsessed with the colour blue. From Luke Skywalker drinking blue milk in Star Wars to me eating Boo Berry Cereal when I was a kid.
Recently our home stager Eileen Crowley from Emerald Interiors mentioned we needed an accent colour for our home. Reg and I tend to love brown and grey, very earthy colours. I ended up picking a bright blue to add a dash of colour to our home. Since then, I have been obsessed with the idea of using our Blue Curaçao in cupcakes. Oh the weird foodie road I walk…
The Recipe
You can find the printer-friendly recipe here
I found this recipe on Eat. Swim. Shop. and loved that it was inspired by Shark Week! Also, it seemed like a super-easy recipe that would not take a lot of time to make but had very cool ingredients.
Using a Betty Crocker Super Moist White Cake Mix looked like a great way to speed up the baking process. I also got 150 PC Points for it and it was only $1.49!
The part that was a pain in the ass was the creamed coconut. I picked up Grace Pure Creamed Coconut only to realize it was a hard solid brick that had to be “creamed” with boiling water.
The kitchen math was challenging enough to figure how much water to add but the hardest part? Getting it to soften and cream. Oh, my hands! You will need half a cup of creamed coconut. I hope you find and easier way to make it!
Combine 1/2 cup of Blue Curaçao, 1/2 cup cream of coconut, 3 egg whites and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil. Blend together.
Add cake mix.
Beat until well combined (crap, I skipped that step by accident). Stir in 8 oz can crushed pineapple with juice and around 1 tsp blue food colouring.
Pour batter into lined cupcake cups. I used an ice cream scoop. OMG, look at that colour!
Pour batter into lined cupcake cups, filling cups 2/3 of the way.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean and/or the cake bounces back when you touch it lightly with one finger. Allow cupcakes to cool.
This recipe made 16 cupcakes.
Foodie Results
These are amazing! OK, a little too much on the sweet side but wonderful. I always know I have a winner when a cupcake is so moist and tasty it does not require an icing. And these don’t! I could happily have them with nothing else on top. But what would be the fun in that?
Decorating!
Sift 1 cup of icing sugar and add enough blue Curaçao to make a glaze, 1 tsp at a time.
If you taste it just like this, wowee, super strong citrus alcohol flavour. Yum! I thought it would be too strong but…
It actually just added a nice extra layer so I could taste the Blue Curaçao even more. Top with sweetened coconut.
Foodie Conclusion
The creamed coconut was a pain in the butt but if you can find a way to get it already creamed, this would be a very easy, tasty and memorable treat to bring to a summer party. The crushed pineapple adds great texture and it really does taste like tropical fun.
Which I kind of need right now. Along with a vacation! And another cupcake…
These look amazing! Do you think microwaving the brick o’ coconut might have made it melt? That assumes it’s some kind of oily substance and really, I have no clue.
You know Debra, that would have been wise. I’m going to try that technique with the last of the coconut cream that is sitting like cement in a bowl in my fridge right now.
These look great! The cream of coconut you buy here in the U.S. (for pina coladas) is in liquid form, but I bet you could use some thick coconut milk instead. That would probably also make the resulting cupcakes a little less sweet. Anyway, I’m sorry about the annoyance of having to cream the coconut yourself, but I hope you liked the cupcakes! I may need to make these again soon. 🙂
Jen, now that makes a lot more sense! Thanks for letting me know oh and don’t worry about it. Conflict is always fun in a story and I love the cupcakes. Thanks again for the inspiration. 🙂
I love the blue. So fun.
I agree, so much fun! Why can’t adults have grown-up fun colourful treats too?