PW Wednesdays ~ Italian Cream Cupcakes
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One of the other girls mentioned it in another post previously that this sounds like really long commercial breaks between PW posts… aaannd we’re back! Yup, another PW recipe. This’ll make 6 so far! Absolute craziness. I’m surprised I’m still able to fit in the same clothes. You have no idea. I’m positive you gain weight just reading the recipes and another few lbs looking at the pictures we all post! Forgive me for that. We can all go on a diet together after this series is over.
This week was Julie’s pick again. She chose Billie’s Italian cream cake for us to make. There should be zero surprise that this has a generous portion of butter and cream cheese. It wouldn’t be a PW recipe without butter! I’m completely okay with that but I also didn’t want any leftovers so I cut this recipe way back. I mean seriously trimmed this sucker down, not even in half but quartered! I’m sure the girls thought I was nuts for actually measuring out my eggs so it was quartered perfectly, or as perfectly as one can be measuring out egg whites. Hello ridiculous!
The original recipe is a 3 or 4 layer cake, depending on how thick your layers are. I’ve only made a 2 layer cake before and that was obnoxious enough. Julie and I were on the same page and opted to make cupcakes instead of a layer cake. Cupcakes are cuter personal portions. I ended up with 7 cupcakes, one of which was stolen by a certain 2 year old straight from the stovetop. She’s such a trouble maker. I can’t really blame her for wanting one, they were tasty and that was before the frosting!
Oh and the frosting… creamy, cream cheesy, coconutty, chunkiness. A bit of explanation: the cake contains coconut and pecans, so does the frosting! The frosting looked amazing as I was whipping it into submission. Then the downfall happened… strips and chunks tossed in. I’d have much preferred a creamy frosting vs a peculiar texture. Frosting just shouldn’t be chunky and I wish I’d thought of that before tossing the coconut and pecans in as instructed.
If you love cake, coconut and pecans then you should definitely give these a try. But be warned, these make a ton or a big layer cake so you’ll want a soccer team to share this with.
Moist cupcakes filled with sweetened coconut shavings and chopped pecans. Top these off with a sweet cream cheese frosting, garnish with additional pecans and coconut. Enjoy!
(*Note the partially eaten cupcake… ahhh kids.)
A few notes:
-Unless you have a team to tackle this recipe with, cut it back at least in half. It’s a lot of cake!
-I liked the coconut flavor but the large shavings gave a peculiar texture to both the cake and frosting (especially the frosting). If made again, for the cake I’d chop up the shavings before adding to the cupcakes.
-While I’m not typically a fan of cream cheese (anything), this frosting was tasty probably due to the excessive amount of powdered sugar. However, I hated the coconut and pecans in there. Like I mentioned above… frosting should be smooth not chunky and stringy. It sure made piping a royal pain too. In the future I would keep the cream cheese frosting creamy and smooth to pipe, adorn the sides with pecans and sprinkle with coconut.
-Chill your frosting prior to piping so it’s a bit thicker and store the cupcakes (or cake) in the refrigerator after being frosted. The cream cheese frosting isn’t stable so this softens quickly when out at room temperature… this also proved to make photographing slightly challenging.
-The piping tip show above was too small! I changed my tip several times for styling and size purposes. The one above wasn’t going to come close to cutting it with the chunkiness going on. If you leave your frosting smooth, any tip will do BUT if you throw the pecans and coconuts in you will absolutely need a very large tip OR just slather it on with a frosting spatula.
I hope you’ll stop by the other girls posts to see what they thought!
Running To The Kitchen
Wanna Be A Country Cleaver
And stop by Julie’s for the complete recipe:
Table For Two Blog
In case you missed any of the previous PW Wednesday posts:
Week 1: Fried Tacos
Week 2: Mushroom Sliders with Spicy Fry Sauce
Week 3: Carnitas Pizza
Week 4: Breakfast Pizza
Week 5: White Chicken Enchiladas
hey cupcake twin!! :) i love the way you did your frosting..so different than any other kind because you added the pecans around the rim of the frosting. you did some great math ;) haha maybe you do have baking ocd! hehe jk
i like your adaptation – i’ve quartered many a recipe, so i’d do the same. looks like yours turned out fab! + i love the partially eaten cupcake in the pic – too funny!
Love that you and Julie did cupcakes. And I love your cupcake liners. But I really, really, really, love the half eaten cupcake :) made me laugh
Coconut and cream cheese?!? This one has me drooling :)
What a cupcake! These look so good! Love the coconut, and the pecans and the frosting, yum!
Good going with the cupcakes and quartering the recipe – I’d probably have to do the same given the amount of butter, cream cheese and sugar in the original recipe. Your cupcakes look beautiful and I like your take on the cupcakes!
I love you and your measuring spoon OCD ;) These cupcakes are so darn cute. Anytime I attempt things with muffin or cupcake liners they come out hideous. I love the cupcake version b/c it’s perfect portion control for that icing! A slice of cake probably has 4 times the amount. Aka: TOO MUCH!
Love this adaptation. I’ll take the chunky frosting off of your cupcake, mmmkay?
Great tips Rachel. These are beautiful cupcakes!
I’d rather bake cupcakes than a layered cake. I can eat tons of cupcakes and not feel the guilt I would if I ate two slices of cake! haha
I just love the way you decorated them – the little swirl with the nuts around the outside is gorgeous! These sound delicious (well, minus the nuts for me) and I will definitely be making them this summer. Coconut plus cream cheese FTW :)
This frosting sounds amazing,I LOVE cream cheese mmm!
This sounds decadent!
I agree – frosting should be smooth. No exceptions. Your cupcakes look perfect though. Can’t imagine how much the original recipe would have made!
so i’m guessing you don’t like German’s Chocolate cake then because of the frosting.
These look so pretty!
Those are such excellent pictures. I especially love the frosting and decorations. So awesome
hi, but where is the recipe link? i have my glasses on to boot…this is embarrassing..i can’t locate it, been looking for 10 minutes, lol..help..can someone put the link on a comment for me? thanks!
Each week only one of us posts the recipe, this week Julie is hosting the recipe: http://www.tablefortwoblog.com/2012/06/13/pw-wednesdays-billies-italian-cake/
These look absolutely fabulous and I love that you quartered the recipe so that you’re not swimming in cupcakes and frosting for the rest of the week :)
You are one diligent (and talented) baker to go to the trouble to downsize everything including your egg whites! Sorry you did not like the pecans and coconut in the frosting. Perhaps just sprinkling them on the top of the cupcakes after frosting would work (I love both so I would keep them in the recipe). I would also have been like your little one and snatched one of these up right away.
These look absolutely fantastic!! I adore coconut and pecans, so many thanks for the recipe.
Mmm, these look too good! I always quarter cupcake recipes because I can’t be trusted around them. :P
Great idea going with the cupcakes and I love how you decorated them! I think it’s great that she swiped a cupcake from the stovetop :)
These look wonderful!