Mayo: It's Not Just for Sandwiches

This weekend I had the privilege of making cupcakes for a friend's birthday party. Having been informed that she was a fan of vanilla cupcakes, I busted out a Bon Appetit recipe that I used last Spring. That recipe, however, is fairly coconut-centric, and I wasn't sure how the party guests would feel about it...coconut seems to be rather polarizing, you either love it, or loathe it. The recipe calls for reduced coconut milk to keep the cupcakes moist and add flavor to the batter and icing, but I felt that the concentrated coconut milk might be too much.

Having read about the wonders of mayonnaise as a useful ingredient in keeping baked goods moist and delicious, I thought that maybe I could combine some un-reduced coconut milk and some mayo and get the same effect as using straight, condensed coconut milk. Yes, mayo is well, mayo, and the thought of it in a baked good sounds somewhat bizarre. Turns out, however, mayo is pretty fantastic and keeping your cupcakes from drying out. And no, you can't taste the mayonnaise. Here's the modified recipe I used:

Super Delicious Vanilla Cupcakes with Mayo

Cupcakes:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs
Seeds scraped from 1 split vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup coconut milk (1 can should be enough for both the batter and the icing)
1/4 cup mayonnaise**

Frosting:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup coconut milk (see above), room temperature
Seeds scraped from 1 split vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt


Cupcakes:
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Line eighteen muffin cups with paper liners. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar; beat on medium-high speed until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add 2 eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Beat in seeds from vanilla bean (or vanilla extract) and remaining egg. Add half of flour mixture; mix on low speed just until blended. (I prefer to fold the flour into the wet ingredients by hand, just to keep from over-working the batter.) Add coconut milk and mayonnaise; mix just until blended. Add remaining flour mixture; mix on low speed just until blended. Divide batter among muffin cups.

Bake cupcakes until tops spring back when gently touched and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer cupcakes in pans to rack; cool 10 minutes. Carefully remove cupcakes from pans and cool completely on rack.

Frosting:
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar, 1/3 cup coconut milk, seeds from vanilla bean, and salt. Beat on medium-low speed until blended, scraping down sides of bowl. Increase to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy.

Using pastry bag fitted with large star tip, pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. (Alternatively, top each cupcake with 2 tablespoons frosting. Using small offset spatula, swirl frosting over top of cupcakes.) Sprinkle with sprinkles/jimmies/etc.

**If you're strongly anti-mayo for one reason or another, plain yogurt would probably also work well--I use yogurt in a lot of my quick breads, and it results in the same, moist, tender crumb.