Eggless Chocolate Banana Coconut Cupcakes

I am so excited about today's post.  Fortunately for me, Adam and I have no special dietary needs which means I get to bake whatever I want; I know quite a few people who aren't as lucky as we are.  Manni from I Bake Cakes is sharing an eggless cupcake recipe today.  This recipe can be easily altered to be completely vegan.

This cupcake was an experiment that turned out to be really good. The coconut is not too over powering but it gives the cupcakes more texture instead of taste. However if you prefer to have more coconut, then I would suggest using the reduced coconut milk instead of the regular milk. The frosting was a regular butter cream frosting which I flavored with coconut milk. I then dunked the frosted cupcakes in sweetened coconut. To top it off, I rolled out chocolate fondant for the “fake coconut” and used green fondant for the leaves.

Yields: 15 cupcakes

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 cup milk (I used 1% milk) or the reduced coconut milk (read below for more info)
1/3 cup oil (I used vegetable oil, canola should be fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract (I actually used a bit more!)
1 Tbsp vinegar
1 Medium size Banana
¾ cup shredded coconut (I had unsweetened kind)
4 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 F.
2. In a medium sized bowl combine: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In another bowl, mix: milk, oil, vanilla extract, and vinegar. Mix well. 
4. Add the dry flour mixture to the wet ingredients slowly and stir until combined. (I ran this through my hand blender for a minute). This mixture is not thick as compared to the cake batter.
5. Now add in the mashed banana and stir using rubber spatula.
6. Fill each of the cupcakes until about 2/3 full. Transfer to the oven.
7. Bake for 15-18 minutes, depending on the type of oven you have you may need to watch these. I had to do several batches to get the right texture. My trial ones came out dry but the last batch was amazing. To further test your cupcakes, take a clean toothpick and insert in the center; if it comes out clean, they’re done!

Frosting:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 ½ cups powdered sugar|
1/3 cup reduced coconut milk, room temperature
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1 ½ cups sweetened coconut

For Reduced Coconut Milk:

Bring coconut milk to a boil in large deep sauce pan over med-high heat. The milk will boil up high, so watch out! Reduce the heat to med-low and boil until the milk has reduced close to half of the milk. This can take approx. 30 minutes. Don’t worry too much if it’s not close to it!! As long as the milk reduces some, it’ll be fine. Next remove from heat and cool down completely. Store it in a small bowl with a lid and chill in the refrigerator. This step can be done a day or two before but remember to keep it chilled!

** Coconut milk is sold in cans, and they are sold in all the major grocery stores. I prefer the cans only because I know the ratio.

Manni's work is just gorgeous!  I picked some of my favorite pictures from her blog to share with you; she is truly an inspiration.

Don't these all look perfect?  Her work is so clean and impeccable.  I limited myself to only sharing pictures with cupcakes, but Manni also does gorgeous fondant cakes.  She was even in a cake competition last month.  Head over to say "hi" and share some love with Manni.