Plum Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

These Plum Cupcakes have vanilla bases with fresh fruit and are topped with an icing made from coconut milk.

Updated 2026 · Now with printable recipe

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It’s become a standing joke that I barely ever publish any cupcakes. It’s not deliberate, I just go ages without doing them.

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Making Plum Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

These plums had been intended for something entirely different but I was struck with inspiration to combine plums and coconut in cupcake form.

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They’ve actually been in the fridge a fortnight, they were still very firm and not yet pink inside. (Secretly I prefer my plums pink and juicy but I am terrible at leaving them too long in the fruit bowl and they end up squishy squashy).

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Mix up a basic cupcake batter – with the simply change to substitute 15g flour with 15g desiccated coconut.

I also threw into half a teaspoon of the coconut flavouring I recently bought in a French supermarket.

Each cupcake contains a one eighth segment of plum.

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To add interest on the tops, I grilled slivers of plum sprinkled with demerara sugar.

Adding coconut milk to glacé icing seems such an obvious thing now I’ve done it but I don’t recall seeing it elsewhere. I wanted a wet icing onto which I’d sprinkle dessicated coconut for an all white effect. Having tried it, I will definitely use this icing again and in other things.

The trick is to use full-fat coconut milk that’s had a good shake before opening the can. Low fat canned coconut milk tends to be watery with a thick top-of-the-milk type bit with all the fat in that. I haven’t tried this with solid coconut but am not convinced it would improve on the milk.

Finally, I used Lakeland muffin cases here which with the 2 egg mix I’m showing the recipe were a bit too big. Plain supermarket cases are smaller than Lakeland ones so these will be ok for 12 cupcakes.

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Print Recipe

Plum Cupcakes with Coconut Icing

Servings: 12

Equipment

• 12 hole muffin tin lined with paper cases

Ingredients

• 3 plums not too ripe
• 1 tbsp demerara sugar
• 130 g butter unsalted
• 130 g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 115 g self raising flour
• 3 tbsp desiccated coconut 1 tbsp for the cake, 2 tbsp for sprinkling
• 1/2 tsp coconut flavouring optional - see notes
• 100 ml coconut milk full fat is best here, and shaken well before opening
• 400 g icing sugar sifted

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to gas 4 / 180c. Slice one of the plums into slivers and lay on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with demerara sugar and while the oven warms up, bake for around 10 minutes until the sugar has melted and the fruit slightly cooked. Keep an eye on it making sure it doesn't burn though.
• Meanwhile, cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy using an electric hand mixer. Beat in the two eggs.
• Fold in the flour and 1 tbsp of the desiccated coconut together with the coconut flavouring or liqueur - if you are using this.
• Divide the batter between the the papercases.
• Cut the remaining two plums in half, then quarters (removing the stones) and then eighths. Dot plum pieces into the batter of each cake.
• Remove the plum slices from the oven if you haven't already.
• Bake the cakes on the middle shelf for 15-20 minutes until golden and springy to touch. (18 minutes is what works in my oven).
• Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
• In another large bowl, spoon the coconut milk over the icing sugar a little at a time, beating it into a smooth paste.
• Once the cupcake bases are cool, spoon over the coconut icing and sprinkle over the remaining desiccated coconut. Arrange slivers of plum on top of that and serve.

Notes

If not serving to children, you could add a teaspoon of Malibu coconut liqueur to the icing in place of coconut flavouring - or omit completely.

Some other sweet plum recipes

A couple of plum recipe recommendations:

• Plum Tarte Tatins (Maison Cupcake)
• Spiced plum semifreddo (Cook Sister)
• Polish plum compote (Coffee and Vanilla)
• Gluten Free Plum Cake (also Maison Cupcake)

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These plum and coconut cupcakes are linking up with Let’s Cook With… at Simply Sensational Food (theme coconut) and Laura and Dolly’s Calendar Cakes (theme cupcakes).