Chocolate Coconut Baby Cakes
Baby Cakes are cupcakes designed for dessert. Emphasis is on taste, not design and fancy decorations are not necessary though they should be attractive enough to serve at a dinner party.
We first made these from scratch, little chocolate cupcakes with coconut added and served in a caramel sauce. The recipe follows. But a mix is quicker and easier. We used a Fudgy Baby Cakes Mix. Instead of making the caramel sauce from scratch, we used a buttermilk syrup mix. My interpretation of buttermilk syrup is “butterscotch and caramel combined.”
Chocolate Coconut Baby Cakes (Mixes)
- Mix a Fudgy Baby Cakes mix and make cupcakes per the package instructions but add 3/4 cup shredded coconut. There are chocolate pieces in the mix and the combination will be a deep chocolate and coconut combination.
- Make a batch of buttermilk syrup. We added coconut flavor to make a coconut buttermilk syrup but the dessert is great without doing so. A teaspoon and a half of coconut flavor is about right.
- After the cupcakes are baked, remove the paper liners and place one cupcake on each dessert plate. Pour warm buttermilk syrup over the cupcakes and top with dollops of whipped cream. Serve while the syrup is still warm and before the whipped cream melts.
Chocolate Coconut Baby Cakes (Scratch)
This is straightforward to prepare and fancy enough to serve to guests.
For the cakes:
1 cup butter
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut
Prepare baking cups by greasing well and flouring the bottoms or use paper liners. A jumbo muffin pan works well. Prepared Pantry who is my supplier for many bread machine mixes as well as cake mixes, also offers paper liners for jumbo muffins pans.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
1. In a large mixing bowl, melt the butter and chocolate together in a microwave stirring once or twice.
2. Stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Then stir in the eggs one at a time. Add the milk.
3. Stir in the baking powder and flour. Finally, fold in the coconut.
4. Spoon the batter in the prepared cups.
5. Bake for 23 to 28 minutes depending on the size of the baking cups. A toothpick inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean when done. Cool on wire racks.
Serve with Caramel Sauce.
Caramel Sauce ( this is completely irresistable – and frankly, I just love to eat it with a spoon!)
1 12-ounce can of evaporated milk
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix all the ingredients except the extract in a heavy saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture boils. Gently boil for eight to ten minutes or until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and stir in the extract. Cool until the sauce thickens to serving consistency.
