Homemade Coconut Lemon Twinkies

 photo credit: http://crackinggoodegg.blogspot.sg

Homemade Coconut Lemon Twinkies

original recipe: http://crackinggoodegg.blogspot.sg/2008/04/challenge-book-4-coconut-lemon-twinkies.html

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup dessicated coconut
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tbspn grated lemon zest
• 1/4 tspn salt
• 1 tspn vanilla extract

Instructions:

Generously grease and sugar a 12 cup muffin tin or preferably a tin with deep narrow cups.

Sift flour and stir in coconut.

Whisk the egg yolks and lemon zest until combined. Add the salt and 2 tbspn and 2 tspns of sugar. Continue whisking until the yolks are pale, thick and doubled in volume. This should take about 10 minutes.

In the meantime, whisk the egg whites until they are frothy. Keep whisking, and gradually add 1/3 cup of the sugar. Continue whisking until medium soft peaks form.

Add the vanilla to the yolk mixture. Stir in one-third of the whipped whites to the yolks to lighten the mixture. Then carefully and gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites. Carefully and gently fold in the flour mixture.

Divide the mixture among the muffin cups. Place in 175C oven. Bake for 4 minutes and then rotate the pan. Cook for a further 5 minutes. Cool the cakes in their tins for around 5 minutes before turning out. Leave until completely cold.

Filling

I used curd lightened with whipped cream. Any type of curd would be great - lime, passionfruit, orange or mango. Jam would be another option. The recipe suggests using marmalade topped with whipped cream.

Twinkies

Spoon the filling into a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip. Poke the tip of the piping bag into the cake and slowly pipe in the filling until it begins to squirt out of the opening.

Dust with icing sugar and serve.

* This is an American recipe so 1 tbspn = 3 tspn. An Australian 1 tbspn = 4 tspn.