happy little cupcake gifts!

hi! I just wanted to share some cute cupcake gifts my mother-in-law gave me for christmas...

  

cute little cupcake ornaments 

cupcake wrappers!

cupcake cookbooks!

and this book...        

 for this happy little dog!

my husband also gave me this awesome cookbook… i've been wanting it pretty much before it even existed. now I just have to figure out what to bake first! any suggestions?

happy little chocolate chip coconut cookie cupcakes

this is my favorite vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe! this recipe is so good it needed to be made into cupcakes!

i love making these cookies! this batch of cookies was un-vegan because I used leftover milk chocolate chips. i wish i had some vegan chocolate chips on hand to make these extra delicious but they still tasted good!

cute cupcake platter given the me by my mother in law...just waiting for some cupcakes

cookie dough baked in mini cupcake liner

frosted and sprinkled

unwrapped

ready to eat! 

recipe!

vegan chocolate chip coconut cookies 

recipe adapted from vegan a go-go!, by sarah kramer, 2008, arsenal pulp press

2 tbsp ground flax seed
3 tbsp water
1/2 cup vegan margarine
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour*
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a small dish, mix together the ground flax and water. In a food processor or large bowl, blend or mix together the flax mixture, margarine, sugar, and vanilla until smooth and set aside. 

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, coconut and chocolate chips. Add the margarine mixture and stir until well incorporated. Roll dough into balls, lay on cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cookies cool 5 minutes before removing from sheet.

Makes 18 to 24 cookies

* sometimes i use half whole wheat flour/half all-purpose flour. I always add in lots of extra coconut!

watch the step by step cookie making process here!

happy little birthday month!!

april is pretty much the best month of the year! april 1st was my birthday.... and in my family we celebrate birthday month! birthday month rocks! today my husband made pancakes for breakfast and he is going to yoga with me this afternoon... because it's my birthday month! 

so i  received some awesome gifts for my birthday! i got this cute little cupcake tea towel from my mother in law. she always manages to find the cutest little cupcake goodies!

my sister in law gave me this great cupcake stand! i've always wanted this cupcake stand but it's one of those items that you can't really justify buying for yourself but would love and adore as a gift so i was soooo excited to get it for my birthday!
when i got home from work on my birthday, this little flower bouquet was waiting for me on my door step! it was from my two super sweet sisters (i'm actually an only child but my best friend, her 4 sisters and i are all like family so we call each other sisters).

i was so excited  to get flowers from them (especially since one of them moved to cabo a few months ago and i miss her too much) but i was confused about the flower arrangement. why would they send me a bouquet in the shape of a triangle? after 3-4 hours of staring at this thing i realized what it was supposed to be!  can you guess by the picture?

it's a slice of cake! even though the florist is not as talented as this one, i thought this was the most thoughtful choice of flower arrangements ever and love them so much for it!

to top off my wonderful birthday, my husband and i picked up a couple slices of cake from the city deli by our house (i was gonna get a cupcake but they didn't look so hot). black forest and lemon coconut cake. yum.

happy little cupcake goodies

over the weekend my husband and i went to visit his parents and grandma. they surprised me with all these wonderful goodies!



cupcake pin cushion made by grandma!

a kitchenaid mixer!!! can you believe it!! i really needed a mixer since my small handheld mixer broke. I dreamed about owning a kitchenaid and was filled with gratitude for this sweet gift. it belonged to grandma and she decided to give it to me because she was perfectly happy with her 15 year old little sunbeam mixer. i just love her for it and i am so excited to use it!


new cupcake cookbook.
we were hanging out at the bookstore and my mother in law bought me this cute cupcake book! it's called cupcake by pamela clark. i took a picture of the book up against my living room window and it came out looking like this. weird huh? It looks like i photoshopped it in the picture or something. i've looked through many many cupcake cookbooks and was really impressed with this one. it had a lot of different ideas i had never seen before like these....















i can't wait to try them all using my new kitchenaid!

happy little cupcake spatula!

something to start with...

maybe i will use these this weekend to make some cupcakes. until then, check out all my other cupcake pics