This past weekend, I was in Sacramento for my 10-year high school reunion and a friend’s baby shower.  I had offered to make cupcakes for the shower and the mama-to-be requested chocolate mint, mocha, lemon and coconut.  I’ve never made coconut cake before, but I figured I could alter my lemon cake recipe slightly to make it coconut.  Guess what?!  It worked!  To make the coconut cake, follow the lemon cake recipe exactly, but sub coconut milk (either light or full fat) for the soy milk and coconut extract for the lemon extract.  You could even add an extra teaspoon of coconut extract to the cake batter, if you wanted to kick the coconut up a notch.  For the buttercream, follow the lemon buttercream recipe exactly, but sub coconut extract for the lemon.  I’ve made this one more time since I made it for this batch of cupcakes, and I think it’s better with an extra 1/2 to full teaspoon of coconut extract.  After frosting, roll in flaked coconut.  All cupcakes were topped with fondant flowers that matched the theme.

I made the cupcake stand following these instructions and covered it in paper that matched the theme of the shower.  The one thing I did not do was glue the paper to the cake boards– I used double stick tape instead to make it less permanent.  To buy all the materials for this project is pretty pricy, but by making it reusable, I’ll get more life out of it.