Yay for peaches. Yay for coconut. Double yay for peach coconut cupcakes with coconut curd and peach preserve filling and peach swiss buttercream.

These were a practice run for a wedding cake I’m making for this weekend (along with 50 cupcakes). Please hold for a post on that. I’ll let you know whether it’s a complete disaster. At this point all 50 cupcakes have been baked, along with two 6 inch, 8 inch and 10 inch cakes. The baking is complete.

It’s the assembling and icing that scares me.

Anyway, these current cupcakes served four purposes:

1) It was our dear friend Steves birthday and going away party (he’s moving to NYC…boooooo hissss)…and thus totally deserved some cupcakes

2) I needed to try out a swiss buttercream instead of the straight up, old fashioned butter and icing sugar buttercream, hearing the rumors that it stands up better and isn’t as sweet.

3) I needed to fool around with piping icing, since I’ll be doing a whole cake and 50 cupcakes this weekend.

4) I needed to make sure that the little fabric flags that I’ll be making for a wedding cake bunting (not bundting) were do-able and not outrageously difficult.

And the results?

1) The cupcakes were a total hit. Gone in about 30 seconds.

2) Swiss buttercream is the sure thing.

3) I think I’ll be able to pipe this weekend.

4) The little flags were simple and adorable.

Score!

Now all I have to worry about is assembling the cake on Saturday, since that has not been practiced.

Wish me luck!

For the Peach Coconut Cupcakes:

from taste.com.au

  • 125g unsalted butter,
  • chopped 3/4 cup dessicated coconut
  • 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
  • 1 1/4 cup self raising flour, sifted
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 4 egg whites 2 peaches, stone removed and flesh chopped

Method Preheat oven to 170°C. Place butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Heat until fully melted. Remove and set aside. Place coconut, icing sugar and flour in a large bowl and make a well in the centre.

Fold egg, egg whites and melted butter into the mix until fully combined then fold through peaches.

Line a 3/4 cup capacity 12-hole muffin pan with 8 cupcake liners. Spoon the mixture into each liner and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool completely.

Coconut Peach Filling – I literally mixed equal parts peach preserves and coconut curd together (about 1/2 jar each). You don’t have to fill the cupcakes, or fill them with straight up preserves!

Peach Swiss Meringue Buttercream

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 large egg whites
  • 26 tablespoons butter, softened (3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons peach oil (or more to taste)

Whisk egg whites and sugar together in a big metal bowl (I used my stand mixer bowl) over a pot of simmering water. Heat and whisk occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.

Transfer mixture into the mixer and whip until it turns white and about doubles in size. (If you transfer the egg whites to a new bowl, wipe the condensation off the bottom of the bowl so that no water gets into the egg whites.) Add the peach extract.

Add the butter a stick at a time and whip. So you’ll start to freak out because the mixture will curdle and make you think you’ve ruined it. You haven’t. Keep whipping…whip whip whip, and it will, at some point come together into a beautiful icing. Taste and add more peach oil if needed.

To assemble the cupcakes:

Using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes.  Aim for 2/3 of the way down – you don’t want to go all the way to the bottom. Put the coconut peach mixture  into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Ice and decorate the cupcakes. I made little fabric flags for mine. (a practice for a cake bunting that I will be making this weekend for a wedding cake I’ll be making…stay tuned!!)