Cupcakes: Coco-Nutz!

Okay, so I tried to get all clever and use Photoshop to juice up this post, but I ran out of focus and here we are. :) Plain old boring photos.

Charley and I were bummed to wake up to Thunderstorms today- but not as much as Boyf, who had grand plans to gorf with a pack of dudes. I have also been packing in the golfing opportunities, so I took this mornings storm as a sign that I needed to bake something.

I recently bought a new cookbook, "Hello, Cupcake!" and in the back of the book, they list ways to spice up boxes of cake mix. I happened to have a spare white cake mix handy, so I grabbed that and went to work. They ask you to do the following:

White cake mix (really any cake mix)
1 cup of buttermilk (replaces any water the recipe calls for) vegetable oil (what box tells you to add)
and then one additional egg (usually it's the fourth)

The cake tastes great and baked up really nicely, so I think I will be doing this from now on- unless I am in a buttermilk void. :/

I decided to make...

Coconut Buttercream frosting:
1 Cup of butter
3.5 cups of powdered sugar
2 teaspoons of coconut extract
2 teaspoons of coconut milk
beat in mixer until fluffy

I topped each one of the buggers with a "Coconut Toupee" of pink sweetened coconut. Coloring the shreds was MUCH easier then I thought- as I found some really useful directions on the interwebz:

Grab a small Gladware container
put a few drops of food coloring into the container
shake it up BEFORE adding the coconut
add the coconut and shake it up some more!
Voila! Pink Toupees for my cupcakes. :P

By the time Charley and I were done, the sun was out for a great, hot, Memorial Day 2010!