Snowflake Cupcake- January

The "cupcake of the month" for January are these incredible coconut "snowflake" cupcakes. The recipe comes for Bon Appetite and I learned to make these at the cupcake class I took a few months ago. All the cupcakes we made in that class were good but these were definitely my favorite. I've made them twice since and they have gotten rave reviews both times. One person said they "melt in your mouth"....which is a good way to describe these.

So what makes these so good?....Coconut Cream!! Coconut cream is used to make pina coladas. Now, I have never made a pina colada in my life, so it took me a trip to 3 groceries stores the first time I decided to make these at home to find the star ingredient. I thought I would find coconut cream in the Latin foods aisle with the coconut milk and coconut water. However, this is actually found in the wine and mixed drinks aisle. It should be easy to find in most grocery stores though, unless you live in a state that only sells alcohol in liquor stores (NJ...I'm talking to you). The two most popular brands of coconut cream are Coco Real and Coco Lopez.

The white chocolate snowflake on top was not in the original recipe. I decided to add these to make the cupcakes look a little bit fancy. Enjoy!!

Ingredients
Makes 30 cupcakes

Cupcake
2 3/4 unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 2/3 sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup canned sweetened cream of coconut

Frosting
3/4 cup (6oz) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 canned sweetened cream of coconut
1 7-ounce package sweetened flaked coconut

Snowflake Garnish
1 cup white chocolate
silver nonpareils

Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 30 standard muffin cups with paper cupcake liners. Whisk first four ingredients in a medium bowl to blend. Using an electric mixer in a medium bowl, beat sugar, butter and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating to blend after each addition. Beat in half of the dry ingredients, then buttermilk, then the remaining dry ingredients. Mix in cream of coconut. Fill each muffin cup 2/3 full of batter and bake for 18 minutes or until toothpick tester comes out clean. Let cool 10 min, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Frosting:
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until fluffy. Beat in cream of coconut. If frosting is too soft to spread, refrigerate until spreadable.
Top frosted cupcakes with flaked coconut.

Snowflake Garnish:
Lay out a sheet of wax paper. Melt white chocolate in a double boiler (preferred method) or in microwave, until chocolate is spreadable. Pour chocolate into a pastry bag then trim a very small corner of tip or pour chocolate into a squeeze bottle. Pipe or squeeze chocolate in a snowflake design onto wax paper. Add silver nonpareils as it starts to dry. Wait for chocolate to dry completely before peeling from wax paper. Peel each snowflake very carefully and place on top of frosted cupcakes.

Source: Bon Appetite