First Day of School

I can almost remember (with the help of my mom) my first day of kindergarten. My curly blonde hair was in a bow, I was wearing every color of the rainbow, and my backpack was at my feet. I smiled cheesily at the camera that my dad was holding, gave my mom a kiss goodbye, got on the bus and never looked back. I learned today that my mom then hopped in her car and followed the bus all the way to Pine Grove Elementary School, willing me to look back and give her a smile saying I was alright. Of course I was way to into the new friends I was making, and never even knew that she was following me until today, 16 first day of school-s later.

 Having survived my last first day of school ever, I decided to live up to a promise that I made a friend of mine and make a birthday treat for him. He gave me two requests. Chocolate and coconut. It's unfortunate that I don't even like coconut, because I knew that my taste-testing ability for this dessert would be limited. So the Scarlet Goddess (my mixer - thanks Mom!) is beating away at this batter, and I suddenly have this extreme urge to taste it. Ignoring the fact that there was coconut milk and coconut flakes in the batter, I took a taste. And then 8 more tastes. My goodness this batter is delicious!!! It's chocolate-y without being overbearing, the coconut is subtle, and it comes together in a way that makes it look almost like chocolate mousse. It's almost too bad I had to put them in the oven. Almost. Because I ended up with these:

...which totally makes up for the fact that I had to put that delicious batter in the oven.

They're pretty enough on their own, right? No? I didn't think so.

Everything is better with buttercream. Happy Birthday Tom!

Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes from Baking Obsession and Vanilla Buttercream from Savory Sweet Life, then topped with toasted coconut.