Today my little boy turns two! It’s such a proud moment as a mama but so sad at the same time, I wish he could stay little forever! We celebrated this past weekend by having his birthday party at his favorite park. All of his friends and family came and it turned out to be a gorgeous day. My husband and I decided to make all of the food for his party and we even made the cupcakes! The end result was amazing and my hubby said all of our friends would hire us for catering services ;).

Everyone loves a good cupcake but no one likes to take the time to bake them from scratch. Well, I decided to try it out since it was my son’s birthday and I wanted to incorporate coconut oil into them. I found a delicious looking recipe for chocolate cupcakes from Glorious Treats that I tweaked a bit to make my own and man oh man were they delicious! I also made vanilla cupcakes and red velvet cupcakes but I’ll have to share those recipes in another post!

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cupcake

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup almond milk

1/2 cup Kelapo Coconut Oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

Directions:

Directions-

1. Line muffin tin with paper liners and preheat  oven to 350*F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed for one minute.
4. Stir in boiling water
5. Fill liners about 2/3 full with batter.
6. Bake cupcakes for approximately 18-22 minutes. (You’ll know they are finished when you can insert a toothpick in the middle and it comes out clean)
7. Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.
   

   Toppings for the Cupcakes

Making the cupcakes was so much fun and surprisingly very simple. Not that cupcakes are healthy for you, but by making them from scratch you know exactly what goes into them! So, at the party I wanted to get creative and have a cupcake “bar”. Basically I just had an assortment of different toppings to top off your cupcake with. It was such a blast and the kids loved it! I will definitely be doing that again next year. Also, I am not the best decorator so I choose to use store-bought icing on top of the cupcakes…shh don’t tell anyone!

In the end, everyone loved the cupcakes and many people took more then one! What do you enjoy making for your children’s birthday parties?

-Lani