I am so well pleased with my coconut oil experimentation.
I made vanilla frosting incorporating coconut oil. It is not purely coconut oil, but rather a combination of butter, Crisco®, and Tropical Traditions® black label coconut oil.
The moon pies and cupcakes are boxed cake mix which is incredibly inexpensive. I divided the box in half by weight and made two batches, one with coconut oil and one with vegetable oil. The batch with coconut oil won hands down.
Cupcakes at altitude is a bit of a trick. You can not get a straightforward answer on this by searching the internet. Most recommendations are to add a few tablespoons flour and to increase the eggs. I just backed off from the water instead of adding flour. I oiled the pans with coconut oil and used a scant tablespoon of batter per cup. This turned out to be too much. Pictured above are the coconut oil batches using a tablespoon of batter. Later batches used a teaspoon of batter. Made with vegetable oil, they all collapsed.
The moon pies were made with a coconut oil and a tablespoon of batter. I dropped the batter on Silpat®. I should have used only a teaspoon and even denser batter. Oh well. Next time.
For the record, this frosting is not an improvement over commercial frosting, IMHO. But I'm not giving up. It occurs to me buttermilk, or cream cheese would be an improvement. I collected a dozen recipes and averaged the amounts. All the recipes I collected said, "This is the best!" They're not. It's a bit too saccharine to suit me. Another thing I learned; the bowl of my Bosch mixer sits atop the motor which gets hot with prolonged use. It doesn't do to blend saturated fats for much longer than a few minutes. It melts the fat, and that's not good. I had to re-chill it and fluff again. Although the coconut oil is very stable at room temperature, it hardens more than butter when chilled. It's fun.
Still, after all I've read on high altitude baking, cakes, cupcakes etc., and the difficulties encountered by bakers, I must say, coconut oil appears to be the perfect ingredient to control results. I melted it to liquify the fat before mixing it in.
