Coconut Chocolate Chip Tea Cakes

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a marvelous holiday season and I wish each of you a happy and healthy  2012. Once I get unpacked and organized, I'll be checking in with you in the next few days to see what you've been up to. In the meantime, I wanted to share a recipe I've had in my draft folder since before Christmas and never had time to post. Enjoy!

When I saw this recipe on El's blog Fresh, I thought what fun it would be to serve these mini bundt cakes for dessert. Fully expecting them to be pound cake density, imagine my surprise to find them light as air. Perfect for tea. Not that we didn't eat them for dessert anyway, but I fully intend to serve them at my next Garden Club meeting with tea and coffee. Unfortunately, the only chocolate chips I had in the house were left-over bittersweet féves. The result really wasn't delicate enough for such a light cake and I'll definitely buy the mini bittersweet chips next time. Still, I'm not complaining. :) They were gone in a flash!

Coconut Chocolate Chip Tea Cakes

From Fresh New England

Ingredients:

125 g unsalted butter, softened

1 1/3 cups sugar 

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. coconut extract (not required but good)

1/2 cup (4 oz) milk

1 1/3 cups flour, sifted 

2 teaspoons baking powder

Scant 1 cup shredded coconut 
Scant 1 cup good quality mini bittersweet chocolate chips

powdered sugar, for dusting

Method:

Butter and flour mini-bundt pans. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In bowl of stand mixer using a paddle attachment, beat butter for about 30 seconds. Add 

sugar and beat until pale, light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat just until mixed in. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add extracts (if you're not using coconut extract, double the amount of vanilla extract) and milk and mix until just blended. Add the flour and mix slightly. Add coconut and chocolate and mix until just blended.

Spoon batter into pan until each opening is half full. Bake 18-22 minutes or until inserted 

toothpick comes out clean. Cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar.