White Chocolate Macadamia Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting

It’s a pretty well known fact in my family that I have a major sweet tooth. I’ve been known to polish off a box of cookies a time or two. I also really enjoy cupcakes but don’t make them often enough. My youngest son just started preschool & I wanted to make some cupcakes for him. The boy loves his sweets…hmm, wonder where he got that from?!?! I grabbed a couple of cookbooks I have, started thumbing through recipes & put on my thinking cap. Knowing that I am NOT a great baker, I knew it needed to be fairly simple (aka, needed to be a box cake recipe!)

I found a couple of recipes that sounded pretty good but didn’t have everything I wanted in one recipe so I combined a couple and came up with a cupcake that everyone really loved. We decorated them for Valentine’s Day but you could add any kind of decorations to them if you wanted to!

White Chocolate Macadamia Cupcakes with Cool Whip Frosting

• 1 package white cake mix, plus ingredients located on the back to make the mix
• 1 package (4 serving size) white chocolate instant pudding and pie filling mix
• 3/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
• 1 container Cool Whip Vanilla Frosting
• Decorations for the top (sprinkles, candies, etc.), optional

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line muffin tin with paper baking cups (I like to fill mine up so this recipe made 18 cupcakes for us)
2. Prepare cake mix according to the directions on the back of the box. Beat pudding mix into cake mix ingredients. Add nuts and white chocolate chips & mix. Fill muffin cups (most recipes say to fill it 2/3’s of the way full). Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
3. Remove from pan & cool completely on wire rack.
4. Right before you are ready to frost the cupcakes, spread the coconut onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 350ºF for about 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the coconut is golden brown. Cool completely.
5. Frost cupcakes with Cool Whip Vanilla Frosting, then top with shredded coconut & decorations.

These were super yummy & all 5 of us really liked them! I was really glad I tried them with the Cool Whip Frosting. I was a bit bummed because the Wal-Mart I went to didn’t have the cream cheese flavor that I really wanted to try (I’ll eat cream cheese frosting with a spoon out of the container!) but was really glad to see the vanilla & chocolate flavors of Cool Whip Frosting.

Shopping at this Wal-Mart was great because it’s not the regular one we go to & I loved that it had a full grocery store inside. Not only that, but a lot of the foods we found I haven’t seen at any of the other grocery stores I go to (Depends on what I need & where I am at the time. I’m not picky!). I had a lot of fun looking at all the different foods and getting fun things for the kids’ lunches.

My oldest son was with me when I was shopping at Wal-Mart, so while I was looking at cheese, cake mixes and Cool Whip Frosting, Jared was in his favorite place…the electronics section. All I have to do is follow the sign that says X-Box 360 & I know I will find him!

On our way out of Wal-Mart, I stopped by the Valentine section to get an idea of what I might want to get the kids. I loved all the cute things & loved the prices even more.

After making the cupcakes, the kids had a lot of fun eating them. Ryan was happy when I told him I made them for him and how proud I was of him starting his new school.

Want to try Cool Whip Frosting out for yourself? Print out this $0.75 off coupon! If you need help printing out the coupon, check out this coupon printing help resource. MAC users, please use a browser other than Chrome.

To see more pictures of my shopping adventure at Wal-Mart, head on over to my Google+ album!  To find other recipes using Cool Whip Frosting, check them out on Facebook!

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community.  This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and Kraft Cool Whip. #CoolWhipFrosting #cbias #SocialFabric.  All opinions are my own & may differ from yours.