Pina Colada Cupcakes

These tropical Pina Colada Cupcakes have crushed pineapple, coconut, and rum in the batter. The coconut icing is sweet and creamy – like a vacation in cupcake form!

We’ve been enjoying the first few sunny, spring-like days here. I’ve been aching for days like these while growing tired of winter’s landscape. I know pina colada flavors are more popular in summer months, but I just couldn’t help myself. March started off with my dad having heart surgery. Which, as you can imagine, was scary and anxiety-inducing. (He’s going to be just fine!) But after all the grey days, and the hospital ambiance, I felt like needed a vacation – even if it’s in cupcake form.

Chock-full of pineapple and coconut, and topped with light coconut buttercream, these Pina Colada Cupcakes are just the little respite I needed.

Batter mixing.

Start by creaming sugar and butter together, then adding eggs one at a time. This is a predictable beginning for cake making, and the quantity of batter is easy enough to manage using a hand mixer.

Next, add in all of the batter’s liquid ingredients. This includes a big dose of rum. will give you the best flavor, but if you just have regular rum on hand that’s fine too. The alcohol content will cook out during baking and leave behind the concentrated rum flavors. If you’d rather not use alcohol, you can substitute an equal amount of canned coconut milk with a half teaspoon of rum extract.

Fold in the flavor!

Mix in the flour until a fluffy cake batter is formed. Then, fold in flake coconut and crushed pineapple. For this recipe, I prefer unsweet flaked coconut, but most home bakers will have sweetened flaked coconut on hand. That will work too, the end result will just be slightly sweeter. I recommend giving the sweetened coconut an extra chop before adding it to the batter. It can be rather stringy otherwise, and shortening the strands makes for a nicer texture in the cakes.

Fill the muffin cups with the batter. Adoes the job just right, about 2/3 full.

Simple piping.

After the cupcakes are baked and cooled, frost them using a simple coconut buttercream made with butter, confectioners’ sugar, heavy cream, and coconut extract. I used a piping bag fitted with 1/2 inch round decorator tip to pipe a circle of frosting around the outer edge of each cake. You can do this too, or simply smear on a little frosting around the edge with an offset spatula. Either way, dip this first layer of frosting in toasted coconut flakes.

Then, use a bag of frosting fitted with a closed star piping tip to make a tall swirl inside the toasted coconut circle.

Add a maraschino cherry on top, and if you’re feeling fancy, decorate them cocktail-style with a mini paper umbrella (found ).

I sat each cake inside pretty gingham paper cups for a pretty presentation. You can find them . You can bake the cupcakes directly in these liners, but they are bigger than standard liners. Since most people use regular paper liners, I wanted my recipe testing to reflect that. You’ll get about 16 cupcakes in standard liners.

The ingredients for these Piña Colada Cupcakes are simple and widely available year-round, so that’s when you should make them. Meaning, whenever you have the craving for them (or need a mini vacay!).

If you’re looking for something a bit lighter, but still sweet and tropical tasting, check out my !

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SprinkleBakes