Coconut Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting -- The Sweet End of a Long Week

The first termination dust on Pioneer Peak. A Code Blue Wednesday morning that we did not save. I stood in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before I got in my car.

Lourdes is 75. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one.

I made tinola Sunday. The chicken-ginger soup, the body-warming dish. The body wanted it.

The blog post this week was about kitchen rituals at Anchorage latitudes. It got six hundred comments.

Pete texted me Saturday. He retired three years ago. He still texts me Saturday. The friendship is the broth.

The salmon in the freezer is from August. Joseph's catch. The bag is labeled in his handwriting — "for Grace." I will use it next week.

Lourdes called me twice this week. The first call was about a church event. The second was about a recipe variation she had remembered from her childhood. The remembering was the gift.

Auntie Norma called Sunday to ask if I had a recipe for a particular merienda from Iloilo. I did not. I said I would ask Lourdes. I asked Lourdes. Lourdes had it. The chain.

I read a chapter of a novel before bed each night this week. The novel was about a Filipina nurse in California. The novel was good. The novel was, in some way, my own life adjacent.

The light was good Saturday morning. I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched the inlet for forty minutes. The watching was the small therapy. The therapy was free.

I made tea late at night. The tea was the small comfort. The comfort was the marker.

I checked email at the kitchen table while the rice cooked. There were one hundred and twenty unread messages. I closed the laptop. The unread can wait.

I sat on the balcony in the cold for ten minutes Sunday night with a cup of broth in my hands. The cold was the cold. The broth was the broth. The body held both.

The Anchorage sky was the Anchorage sky. The mountains were the mountains. The inlet was the inlet. The geography was the geography.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. I wiped the stove. I scrubbed the sink. I reorganized the spice cabinet. The cleaning was the small reset. The reset was the marker. The marker said: the week is over, the next week begins, the kitchen is ready.

A reader from New Jersey wrote in about her grandmother's adobo, which used pineapple. I had never heard of pineapple in adobo. I tried it. It was strange. It was also good. The strange and the good are not opposites.

I taught a Saturday morning Kain Na class on basic adobo proportions for new cooks. Eleven people in the kitchen. Half of them had never cooked Filipino food before. By eleven AM the kitchen smelled the way it should smell. By noon they were all eating. The eating was the lesson landing.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced a fundraiser for typhoon relief in Samar. I committed to making three hundred lumpia. The number is the number. The number has always been the number. Three hundred is what I make. The math has stopped surprising me.

Auntie Norma called Sunday afternoon. She is now seventy-nine. She wanted a recipe. I gave it to her. She wanted to know how my week was. I told her, briefly. She told me about her week. The exchange took eighteen minutes. The eighteen minutes was the keeping.

The tinola had done its work by Sunday — the body was warm, the kitchen was clean, and the spice cabinet was reorganized. What I wanted after all of it was something sweet and a little bright, something that still held the flavor of home without the weight. Coconut is never far from my pantry or my memory, and these cupcakes — the lime cutting through the richness the way a good phone call cuts through a hard week — felt like the right ending. I made a batch Sunday evening, after Auntie Norma’s eighteen minutes, after the cold on the balcony, after the broth.

Coconut Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• For the Lime Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon lime zest
• 1/4 cup toasted shredded coconut, for garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners and set aside.
2. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium-high speed for 2–3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs and extracts. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract and coconut extract. Mix until fully incorporated.
5. Alternate wet and dry. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the coconut milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix until just combined — do not overmix.
6. Fold in coconut. Gently fold in the shredded sweetened coconut with a spatula.
7. Fill and bake. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared liners, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake for 18–20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Cool completely. Let cupcakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.
9. Make the frosting. Beat the softened cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating on low. Add the lime juice and lime zest and beat on medium until light and fluffy.
10. Frost and garnish. Pipe or spread the lime cream cheese frosting onto each cooled cupcake. Sprinkle with toasted shredded coconut to finish.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 385 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 21g | Carbs: 46g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 180mg