Coconut Cupcakes

This past week I offered to make cupcakes for a coworker's baby shower party (yes another one, my work has the most pregnant women ever!) I asked her what flavor she'd like, and was a little worried when she said coconut. Coconut has never been a favorite but I've recently discovered that coconut milk is quite delicious and actually a really great idea to put in cupcakes. So they actually turned into a really great cupcake that I was excited to bring in. I colored some coconut for the top for fun, in boy colors & made a diagram so people wouldn't ask me what was in them :)

Coconut cupcakes:

3/4 cup butter; room temp

1 1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs; room temp
1 cup of canned coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
optional 1/2 cup shredded coconut

preheat oven 350
1   beat the butter until it is fluffy, about 2-3 minutes
2   then beat in the sugar and vanilla
3   beat in the eggs one at a time
4   in another bowl mix the flour, salt and baking powder
5   add 1/3 of dry ingredients into the butter and mix until incorporated
6   add in 1/2 the coconut milk and mix until incorporated
7   repeat with flour, milk, flour
8   at this point you can opt to fold in the shredded coconut, I seperated the batter in 1/2
     and stirred 1/4 cup in one half
9   scoop batter into cupcake tin w/ liners, I use a 1/4 measuring cup to do this
10 bake 18-20 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean
11 let cool before you frost them


Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
food coloring of your choice
a few tbs of water
1/2 cup butter; room temp

8 oz cream cheese; room temp

1/4 tsp almond extract

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1     to color coconut place 1 tbs of water in a mug and add only a few drops of food coloring

2     then add in about 1/2 cup coconut and stir with a spoon until coconut is all colored
3     transfer to paper towel to dry
4     repeat for all colors, put them on their own paper towels so their colors don't mix while they dry
(if you do this in advance: once the coconut is dry transfer it to a plastic bag or container and store in fridge until ready to use)
5     beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy
6     beat in almond extract
7     slowly add in the powdered sugar and beat well
8     place the colored coconut in a small bowl, make sure the colors are mixed well
9     using a knife, ice a cupcake then dip it's top in the coconut, make sure all icing surface is covered

10   repeat with remaining cupcakes, don't ice them all first or the icing will dry some and not take the conconut as well

Yellow Aster Butte Hike!

This weekend was a funny one for us because Joshua and I were convinced his mom was coming out to visit this past weekend. We had cleaned decided all our plans, and Wed morning we discussed picking her up from the airport. Until, he calls me Wed. afternoon saying never mind she comes next weekend haha. So it kind of felt like we were given a free weekend & we took full advantage!

Friday night we met at a little Italian restaurant by home and ate delicious food while a piano player was playing live and singing. The best part was he took requests and Joshua got him to sing Jesus, Etc by Wilco (he had never heard of it before) and he rocked it!

We've been wanting to go on a hike by ourselves all summer so we jumped on the opportunity Saturday and got up at 6am! and drove up to Mt. Baker, then up a gravel road 1 lane road, with no guardrail, where we put the truck in 4x4 (kind of scary). But then the hike was breathtaking! Absolutely beyond words, the best hike we've ever gone on. There were mountains layered in every direction (we actually checked, every direction), little lakes (one was covered in ice and we walked on it), but the hiking was intense.

these are the stats of the hike:

distance: 7.5 miles (but then there are a bunch of little trails to the lakes and such that we hiked)

elevation gain: 2500 ft!!! some parts seemed like you were hiking straight up

highest point: 6150 ft

yum homeade apple butter and bread lunch overlooking the mountains

standing on the ice

It was so hard to hike down from this beautiful place!

But we had to because we met up with 4 friends and played thunderstone :)

At first we tried to hang out at a place called AFK (which apparently means away from keyboard)

which is a nerdy gaming restaurant/bar but it was full of people (mostly dressed up)

so we went to a brewery, spread out on their largest table and played for about 3 hours

It was a long day but also a really great full day

So much beauty and exersize and fresh air and a perfect ending with sharing pitchers and laughing with friends.

So our free Saturday ended up being a huge blessing