Key Lime Coconut Cupcakes

One of the cupcake shops around here won me over instantly when they sold me a key lime coconut cupcake. It was Ah-mazing! Moist and rich, with a delectable filling and dancing flavors on my tastebuds. It's a little far from my house, however, and I don't often find myself in that neighborhood anymore. So I set out to make my own by combining some recipes I found around the web. First cake attempt wasn't satisfactory, but round two was pretty darn good. So here's how it goes:

Key Lime Coconut Cupcakes

Cupcakes:
3 Tbsp fresh squeezed lime juice
1 tsp coconut extract
almost 1 c coconut milk
1 c butter, melted
4 eggs
1 Betty Crocker Super Moist French Vanilla cake mix
(that's what I used but you can experiment with different brands, or maybe a white cake too)
2 tsp lime zest

Pour lime juice and coconut extract into a 1 cup measuring cup. Fill the rest of the cup full with coconut milk. Mix butter, eggs, cake mix, and coconut milk mix in a medium sized mixing bowl according to cake package directions. Stir in lime zest. Pour into lined cupcake pans (makes 24 cupcakes) and bake according to package directions. Cool.

Filling:
I just bought some key lime filling because it was a trusted brand that I know to produce good tasting products (Private Selection brand, which is Krogers/Smiths high end store brand. They make great icecream too :)
You can make your own from scratch though. I haven't tried this but here's one example:
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 c key lime juice
1 Tbsp lime zest

I tried two different methods of filling. First, I carved a little hole out of the center with a knifeand filled in the hole with the lime filling. Most of the time I put in too much. Maybe if I had a cupcake corer this would have been more successful. My second method was to use a decorating bag and tip (Wilton #230) made for filling pastries and cupcakes. For me, that worked better. I just piped in the filling until I saw the cupcake begin to bulge. After the cupcakes have been filled, you may want to cover & refrigerate them for a few hours to allow the filling to soak in just a little.

Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp coconut extract
3 c powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients together and frost your cupcakes! Garnish with sprinkled lime zest and a thin sliced wedge of lime.

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