Pink Snowball Coconut Cupcakes

These came very good! I loved the raspberry cream filling along with the coconut. The cupcake part came out a little more dense than I normally like my cupcakes. I think a lot of that is personally preference. The cupcakes had great flavor though. I saw a recipe for fluffy cupcakes, so I am thinking about maybe next time making that recipe and adding the vanilla, almond, and coconut from this recipe to it. Also, I definitely recommend having a kitchen aid mixer to make these as the cupcake mixture needs to mix for awhile. But overall, everyone has really liked them. They look so pretty too. They would be perfect for a wedding shower or baby shower!

Pink Snowball Coconut Cupcakes
Source: Craft.Quirky.Fun
Yield: 2 dozen
Weight Watchers Points: 8.5 points per cupcake

Ingredients:
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups of sugar
5 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp of pure almond extract
3 cups of flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup of buttermilk (I used yogurt as a substitute)
14 ounces of sweetened, shredded coconut
Red food coloring

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add eggs, 1 at a time. Add vanilla and almond extract and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add half the dry mixture to the batter and then the yogurt. Add remaining dry mixture. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.

Line a muffin pan with paper liners and fill with batter. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops golden brown. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then place of cooling rack. Allow to cool completely.

Filling & Frosting

Pastry bag with tip (you can use a plastic baggy and cut a hole in the corner)
2 (6-ounce) containers fresh raspberries, cut in half or 1 (16-ounce) container fresh strawberries, coarsely chopped (used frozen but let them defrost first)
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup of powdered sugar

Coarsely mash raspberries in a medium bowl with fork. Beat the cream and 1/3 cup of powdered sugar in a large bowl until firm peaks form. Fold the raspberries into the whipped cream.

Fill the pastry bag with the filling mix. Puncture the cupcake and squeeze a little bit of the filling into the middle. Frost the cupcakes tops with the remaining filling.

Place 1 drop of red food coloring into a bowl of the remaining coconut. Mix well until you have an even coating of color. Sprinkle cupcakes with the remaining coconut.