Just playing around

I hate to waste. When I bake, I scrape the bowl clean of any dough or batter so well it hardly needs cleaning!(Don't worry, I really do wash them!) The waste thing also goes for leftover components of a recipe. When I made that coconut cake last week , there was a lot of leftover filling and frosting. I knew that if I just refrigerated them , waiting for an opportunity to use the stuff, it would spoil. So I had to come up with something to make good use of both things. I love anything with a chocolate-coconut combination ( Bounty Bars!!) so I whipped up a batch of simple chocolate cupcakes. I put a spoonful of the batter in the muffin cup, then a scant teaspoon of the coconut filling , finally covering it with another large spoonful of batter. They baked up so beautifully! Frosted with the leftover frosting, they were a big hit with the lucky third grade class I taught the next day!!

Now, after all that, I STILL had filling leftover. Among my endless pile of recipes "to make", I found one for homemade peanut butter cups. OK- so why not just make them with coconut instead? Like a homemade Bounty bar! They are fast, easy ( no tempering) and didn't last two minutes on the table in

the teacher's room. Now the coconut filling is finally gone! Here's the  how to:

Chocolate-Coconut Cups

(adapted from Joyofbaking.com)

Line 36 mini muffins tins with paper liners (it may yield even more than that)

Chocolate part:

9 oz. (225 grams) semi sweet chcolate, coarsely chopped ( I used bitter chocolate)

9 oz.( 225 grams) milk chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon ( 10 grams) butter ( the original recipe calls for shortening, but I can't get it here so I used butter and it worked just fine)

Coconut Filling

Melt the chcocolates and butter in a bowl over a pot of simmering water.

Drop a teaspoonful of chocolate into the muffin cups. Place a scant teaspoon of the coconut filling over it then top with another teaspoon of chocolate. Refrigerate until set. Store in a closed container in the fridge- if they last that long! Enjoy!