Coconut cupcakes and homeade lemon curd

It's Mr Cutie and the Feast's birthday this week and also cake club next weekend (first rule of cake club is I can't talk about cake club!) and so I thought I'd have a practise run at some coconut cupcakes.

I gathered all of my supplies and got Bodkin to help me for added cuteness.

The recipe for the cakes was the recipe that my mum taught me:

6oz Caster sugar

6oz Butter

6oz Self raising flour 

3 medium eggs

I wanted to make these coconut cakes and so I replaced 2 oz of the flour with dessicated coconut. This recipe is easy to scale up or down just decide on the number of eggs and multiply the rest of your ingredients by 2. 

I also added a couple of drops of Uncle Roys coconut essence for a coconutty boost.

The cakes take about 20-25 minutes to bake. I tested them by sticking a metal skewer in the middle and checking that it came out clean.

For the filling I made a homemade lemon curd. It was the first time that I had tried to make lemon curd and I was amazed at how easy it was, I'll not be buying shop bought again.

I followed Delia Smith's recipe which you can find online here:

I must say the product was very delicious and I've been having it on toast for breakfast.

The buttercream was made using melted white chocolate, butter, icing sugar and a bit of milk. I often make buttercream without using any measurements and just keep adding icing sugar/butter/milk until the consistency is right so I'm afraid I've not got amounts for this bit.

When the cakes were cool I filled them with the lemon curd using a donut filler and then iced them with a large star nozzle. I use a nozzle from a kit made by Lakeland and always get a nice swirly finish.

Last but by no means least a generous topping of sprinkles and a candle for the birthday boy!

We took them on a picnic to the National Trust in Formby and ate them with a cup of coffee at a rather cold and slightly soggy picnic table.

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