Coconut (cubed)

Named for a joke I have with my mother, but dedicated to my father for his love of coconut, this recipe called for quite a bit of work. It included the basic cupcake, a lemon filling, and a meringue topping. There were so many eggs in it, my mom had to run out to the store to get more. We had to rig a double boiler and use a mixer while the meringue was on the stove. The filling called for two separate electric mixers.

'Lemon coconut snowballs' by Elinor Klivans

Cupcakes

• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 large egg whites
• 1/4 cream of tartar

Filling

1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 eggs, 2 egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch

7-minute-that-took-way-longer-than-7-minutes frosting

1 1/4 cups sugar, 1/3 cup water, 3 egg whites, 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, 3 cups shredded coconut

Thoughts..

1)This recipe was intense, I just finally took a breath.

2)I'm becoming very skilled at separating yolks and whites.

3)For some reason, I always have a HECK of a lot more frosting than I need, so I'll be cutting the frosting recipes in half.

4)You can get lost in meringue. It sounds crazy. But when you stand there with a mixer over the stove beating egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar for 10 minutes, you get mesmerized. The color of it is just about blinding.

That's about it