Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes

This truly is a little piece of heaven. I think that in general I am a pretty good cook. I have a few dishes that I excel at and sometimes I find myself with a marked moment of genius. This is one of those times. Take a yummy moist chocolate cupcake and pipe in a coconut whip cream filling and top with a coconut meringue frosting and sprinkle with toasted coconut. What you end up with is a combination that is insanely delicious.

For those of you who might want to try your hand at these here is the recipe. Trust me it is worth it. Make them tonight and your husband and children with love you all the more tomorrow. They are so yummy

Cake
chocolate cake mix
1 box chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup vanilla yogurt
1 1/4 cup coconut milk (I suppose you could use regular milk)
1/2 oil
1 tsp coconut flavoring.

Bake at 350 till the cupcakes bounce back when touched in the middle. Let them cool for 1/2 to an hour.

Filling (make this before you start the cupcakes so that it has time to get real cool)
1 pint of whipping cream
3/4 cup powders sugar
1 tsp coconut flavoring

Whip the cream on high with a hand mixer, just like you would if you are making whipping cream (which you are) add sugar and flavoring and then cover and place in fridge.

Once the cupcakes have cooled pipe it the filling. To do this you take a pastry bag and fill it. Using a pointed tip poke it into the top of the cupcake and squeeze.

Toast some coconut. To do this by placing coconut on a baking sheet and put into the oven for about 3 min on the top rack at 350. Stir every one minute to even out the brown.

"Seven minute frosting"
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large egg whites and room temp. (take out of the shell they get to room temp faster this way.
6 TBSP of cold water
1/4 tsp cream of tarter
1 1/2 TBSP light corn syrup
pinch of salt
1 tsp coconut flavoring

Bring 2 inches of water to a simmer in a large saucepan. Combine sugar, egg whites, water, corn syrup, cream of tarter and salt in a large bowl. (the bowl must sit right inside of the saucepan so that it act like a double boiler) Set the bowl over the saucepan and beat with a hand held electric mixer on high speed until the egg whites have quadrupled in volume and are shinny, about 7 minutes. Remove the bowl from the saucepan, and coconut flavoring, and continue to beat for 2 more minutes. Use immediately. Spread on generously and make soft peaks with the back of a spoon. Then dip into the bowl of toasted coconut or you could sprinkle it on if you wanted. Keep in the fridge or in a cold place.

These really are not as hard as they recipe sounds, and believe me they really are worth the effort. So worth the effort.

Popcorn

How do you eat your popcorn? Do you eat it by the hand full, or one kernel at a time. Do you enjoy it smothered in butter and heavily salted, or do you like it air popped and flavorless. What ever way you take it, Reese enjoys eating her "Popcorns" with a fork. Lance likes you to feed it to him while he plays the playstation.