It was only a matter of time before a cupcaker was unable to successfully complete Ming’s recipe and be forced to make an entirely different recipe so as to not disappoint the fellow cupcakers. Well, if you haven’t guessed it by now, that cupcaker was me.
I dutifully followed the recipe, but there were so many places where things could go wrong, and evidently, something did. I needed to beat the egg whites and salt until there were soft peaks. Then add sugar and beat until there were stiff peaks. Then fold the stiff peaks gently into an egg yolk mixture.
I don’t know if I went wrong at the soft peak, stiff peak, or gently folding stage, but the cupcakes shriveled up a few minutes after I took them out of the oven. After splitting one open, it appeared as though the ingredients separated: the bottom was a congealed glob of goo and the top was somewhat spongy. There was no way I’d serve these to anyone, and I unfortunately didn’t have the time or culinary resources in stock to go through the soft-peak, stiff-peak, gently-fold process again and risk another fail at any/all of those stages. So I claimed defeat and used Barefoot Contessa’s coconut cupcake recipe instead. The batter was absolutely delicious—I had no problem licking the bowl—and the cupcakes graciously didn’t shrivel into a congealed glob after I took them out of the oven. Instead they turned out plump and tasty. The conquest wasn’t a complete fail: I used Ming’s frosting recipe, which was very good. However, because it uses egg yolks, I’d be somewhat leery to make it for other people again. I’d hate to make someone sick.
All in all, if I were to make coconut cupcakes in the future, I’d probably choose the easier route again and stick with Barefoot Contessa’s recipe and leave Ming’s recipe for those with more culinary genius.
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