Fruit of the Spirit: Coconut Citrus Meringue Pie

Remember a few days ago when I vaguely promised that there would be more pie before the month of July was up? Yeahhhhh...here's me delivering on that promise.
It was a toss up regarding flavors. It's summer, so something heavy and rich wasn't my favorite choice. Wasn't in the mood for chocolate, but I had made a few fruit pies already this month.
I was really going for strawberry pie, just because I hadn't eaten it in about six years or something, which is an absurd amount of time to go without strawberry pie.
But I had just made mint syrup that I wanted to use so I added Grasshopper Pie to the options. Whoohoo, it was getting better by the minute.
And then I knew that I had two cans of coconut milk in the pantry that had been sitting there forever...and who could say no to creamy coconut?

A Poll was organized, family members and twitter followers were surveyed anddddd. Coconut won out in the end. Go coconut! (It is an astounding nut, I have to say.)
But even in its astounding state, I didn't want to make plain old super delicious coconut cream pie. Depth and dynamic was needed. *hunt around the kitchen ensues* I considered putting the strawberries in, but that might not be the best flavor combo. Raspberries? Better...tart and sweet would be nice.

But then when lemons and limes were found in the bottom of the veggie drawer, I was sold. (I'm always sold when it comes to lemon lime. Citrus is kind like my spirit animal, except it isn't an animal, it's a fruit. So it's my spirit fruit? Fruit of the Spirit? Citrus is love and joy and peace. YES! Wait, no...confused.)
So, zesting and juicing and boiling, whipping, and folding. Hours later I sneak down to the kitchen to eat my appropriately chilled citrus coconut meringue pie and this happened.

I smiled. Someone had taken a slice already. It's good news when your family eats pie in the middle of the night.
So yes, you can practice your fruit of the spirit (mainly self control) while waiting for your pie to chill properly. Or you can just get straight down to "goodness" and slice into it early. No harm done. :D

Coconut Citrus Meringue Pie
Ingredients:
1 pie crust, blind baked
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
5 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Juice and zest from one lemon and one lime
For Meringue:
3 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
6 Tablespoon sugar

Instructions:
Pour coconut milk, half-and-half, and lemon and lime juices into a large bowl with the egg yolks. Whisk together until smooth. Add sugar and cornstarch to a saucepan over medium heat. Slowly pour the milk and egg mixture into the pot, whisking as you go. Bring this custard mixture to a boil while whisking. Switch to a wooden spoon and boil one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, coconut, and lemon and lime zest. Spread the custard into pie crust. 

For Meringue:
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar on medium speed in a stand mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar one tablespoon at a time on high until stiff glossy peaks form and the sugar is dissolved. Spread over the pie filling, sealing the edges to the crust. Sprinkle the top with flaked coconut and a teaspoon of citrus zest. 
Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes or until the meringue is golden. Cool on a wire rack for one hour, and then refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving. 

Crazy Side of the Fence: Iced Tea Lemonade Cupcakes

Memorial Day is coming.
And for me that means one thing. HOT DOGS! Wow, I love hot dogs.
Okay, so it means two things then. Hot dogs and cold drinks. (Actually, it doesn't really mean much. I have absolutely zero plans for Memorial Day because I'm a loner and like to stay on my own front porch and blog, but beside the point...)

Cold drinks. Memorial Day means Lemonade!
Or....Iced Tea.
Or BOTH. Because here at Purple Door Kitchen (and by Purple Door Kitchen I actually mean my very comfy bed) we embrace the wild and crazy ones who pour their glasses half full of lemonade AND iced tea. It's a partay with these kind of shenanigans of mixed drinks goin' on. Or it should be, at least.

I love lemon. I love tea. Seriously. If I had to pick one thing to drink for the rest of eternity I would pick lemon tea. I wouldn't even start complaining about it for at least 7 and a half years. Or at least 7 and a half months...but it would be a lovely 7 and a half months. Of course, if I love something I usually put it in cupcake form. It's a bad wonderful habit I think. Lo and behold: Lemonade Iced Tea Cupcakes.

And you're going: "Whuuutttt? Candice, you've honestly lost it fer shure." Perhaps I have. It's okay, it's nice here on the crazy side of the fence. you should join me. Jooooiiiiiiinnnn meeeeeee...Well. You don't have to. I admit, these are weird. Not everyone can enjoy those off the wall flavors, so I understand if you stay on the normal side of cupcake world. However, if you are one of those people who really enjoy iced tea and lemonade and you think it would taste AWEsome in cupcake form then yes. Hop on over.

Iced Tea Lemonade Cupcakes
1 cup milk
5 black teabags
juice and zest of one lemon
1 1/4 cup flour
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 packet of powdered Arnold Palmer iced tea mix (you know, the ones you pour into a water bottle? Yup.)
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Heat the milk in a saucepan til almost boiling. Remove from heat and steep the tea bags in it for ten minutes. Whisk in the lemon juice and set aside to curdle. Sift together flour, baking powder, corn starch, salt, lemon zest, powder drink mix and sugar in a large bowl. Mix in the tea-milk mixture, oil and vanilla. Stir until no lumps remain. Pour into cupcake wrappers and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until they spring back when lightly touched. 
Frost with
Lemon Buttercream
1/2 cup soft butter
1/2 cup shortening
4 cups powdered sugar
zest and juice of one lemon
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tablespoons milk if needed
Blend butter and shortening together until combined. Mix in vanilla, juice, and zest. Beat til combined. Add four cups of powdered sugar. If too sift, add tablespoons of milk to thin.

Signs of Spring and Orange Pistachio Cupcakes

People.
Tulips are here. So are forget-me-nots. Also...the sun stays up til eight o'clock.
This means SPRING!
Okay, so it is still raining cold, hard, ugly rain and venturing outside usually means misery, but it's coming. There are signs. I love the signs.

So today being a Saturday completely to myself (my family is out of town) with zero obligations to the outside world I decided to wake up at 7 o clock in the morning and be HAPPY and PRODUCTIVE. (See  how those things are in caps? That means stuff just got real.) Do you know how much more time you have when you wake up at 7 instead of at ten? It's crazy...

So. What does HAPPY mean in my personal dictionary? It means making cupcakes. And cupcakes can kind of be productive, right? (I did three loads of laundry and cleaned all the bathrooms just to make sure I covered the PRODUCTIVE aspect of the morning. You know, just in case. I wanted there to be no doubts regarding the matter.)

Enter:
Happy Productive Signs of Spring Cupcakes;
Mandarin Orange and Pistachio Almond Cupcakes
So that's a long name. I'm sorry, you'll have to deal with it because all those words are important for everyone to understand how awesome these cupcakes are.
Fluffy almond cake: check

Juicy bits of mandarin oranges: check

Crunchy pistachios: check

Lightly sweet almond buttercream and cute springtime topping of orange segments and pistachios: check

Happiness and productivity: check

Now, decorating these cuties proved a challenge. I started with green tinted frosting. Because pistachio cupcakes=green. Understandable.

But it didn't look quite right. So I added orange tinted frosting to the equation. Better....But then I tried frosting them with just the plain white un-tinted frosting. I liked the way those ones looked best.

What can I say? I like simplicity. And it seems classier that way. But of course, when you make these yourself (You will be making these, right? RIGHT? Ok, good.) you can decorate them however you please. You can even skip all the trial and error of frosting tinting since I got that out of the way for you.

Mandarin Orange and Pistachio Almond Cupcakes (Makes 12)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 c. buttermilk
2 cans mandarin oranges, with syrup
1/2 cup shelled and chopped pistachios
Preheat your oven to 350 F and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Set aside. Open the cans of mandarin oranges and measure 1/4 of the syrup in to a small bowl. Add 1/4 cup of buttermilk to this syrup, set aside. Using mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in vanilla and almond extract. Beat in the dry ingredients and milk/syrup mixture in 3 additions to the batter. Chop orange segments roughly to measure 1/2 cup. Fold with pistachios into the batter. 
Measure the batter into the muffin cups, filling 3/4 of the way full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Let cool completely before frosting. Top with additional chopped pistachios and remaining mandarin orange segments.

Almond Buttercream Frosting:

1 lb powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 stick of softened butter, cut into cubes

1/2 cup shortening

Whisk together sugar, vanilla, almond, and milk in stand mixer. Add butter one slice at a time, beating until incorporated. Add shortening and whip about 8 minutes until double. 

Cupcake Craze: Orange Dream

I set out to make two kinds of cupcakes for a family who came to dinner on Sunday. (They were VERY nice company. They laughed a lot and weren't scared to actually make real interesting conversation despite the fact we had just met.) Orange Dream and Key Lime. Key Limes are their own kind of animal, so this is all about my orange concoctions. I'm pretty excited because they turned out great! And I created the recipe on my own. The cupcake itself tasted like an Orange Creamsicle, but filled with Orange Marmelade and topped with Cream Cheese Frosting and candied orange peel, they were better. Our company (one of whom is a self confessed food snob) really liked them. :) That's the best part of baking- when people get happy from eating it. And for extra fun I'm posting my recipe for Candied Orange Peels. They are super tasty and fun to make. (Who am I kidding, everything is fun to make!) Plus they make the kitchen smell like that old fashioned orange peel potpourri that Christmas Fairs sometimes smell like.

Candied Orange Peels

Peel an orange with a vegetable peeler and put the peels in a pan of cold water. Heat the pan until the water is boiling. Let them boil for about 3 minutes. (The orange water smells great and you can save it for linen spray to keep your towels and sheets smelling orange and fresh)  Drain quickly and place in cold water. When the peels are cool enough to touch, drain them and pat them dry on paper towels. The next part is probably the most extensive part. Take a knife and scrape/slice off the white part that is normally closest to the fruit. Make sure you get all of it off. If you leave the slightest part on, the candy will be bitter. After they are all scraped, cut the peel into the shapes you want your candies to be. I usually cut them into thin strips so they look nice on a cupcake. You can cut them into fun shapes with kitchen scissors too, if you want. In the same pan you boiled the peels in before, mix 1/4 cup of water with 1/2 cup of sugar. Heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is boiling. Add the peels to the syrup and boil them until they become transluscent. Then spoon them out of the syrup and roll in sugar. Place them on paper towels to dry. You can then use them to top cupcakes, cookies, muffins, or just to eat on their own.

Key Lime...

EDIT: I have put up more photos of the finished cupcake! They are mini cupcakes however, so the size of them is smaller. 

I have very few pictures of my Key Lime experience, unfortunately. My photographer was there during the baking process, but she was unable to take pictures of the actual finished cupcakes... All is well. I can always make them again and update my posts with more photos later! ;) I'll probably have to make them again anyway. I frosted them with cream cheese frosting because I had some left over...but that was a weird citrus combination. Next time vanilla butter cream will be better, I think. Cream cheese is great but as with all recipes, it can't be used in everything.

 The finished product! :)