Before I get to the recipe though, I just wanted to thank everyone for the outpouring of love I have received since my last post. I have received many supportive phone calls and e-mails. None of which I believe I have returned yet (though I will!). I also wanted to give special thanks to Antonia, who was sweet enough to surprise me with a beautiful arrangement of flowers delivered to my door this afternoon:
Nothing better to brighten my day :) Your kindness is more touching than I can put into words.
Also, I wanted to give a shout out to Anonymous, whose encouraging comment, "Sometimes, the achievement is not that you got anything done, but that you simply keep going" has been graved into my mind forever. This is going to be my mantra when the going gets tough, as it has been this past little while.
I just wanted to touch base and say that, despite the desperation in my last post, we are managing. I am intensely frustrated with our system that provides no help to families until things are so crucial that they are almost unsalvageable. I do not at all feel that we are at that point. But I also don't want to get there. And as time goes on, I can see that our ability to cope with the everyday stressors of raising our little monkeys is diminishing. I want help before I get to the place of being a mom who screams at her kids all day long, no matter what they do. That is not who I am as a person and it is not the relationship I want to have with my little guys. And I just want help to manage everything so that I do not turn into that type of a mom for them.
We are surviving and we do what we need to do to get by. As my close friend, who dropped by unannounced the other day, saw, our house is often a complete disaster. We eat hot dogs or plain pasta when we need to. I barely post any recipes anymore (mostly because I don't even have time to cook) and I blog more to deal with the stress of what we are living these days. So things are still somewhat manageable, even if they are intensely stressful. I felt I needed to comment on this because I was surprised at how many people contacted me after my last post - I don't think anyone needs to be particularly worried about us. Though thank you for your love, concern and support.
Now let's get on to some delicious Easter cupcakes. Made from a box, of course, because my life these days leaves no time to make homemade gf cupcakes. If you have a bit more time than I do, and aren't gf, I highly recommend my chocolate sour cream bundt cake instead. Or for those who are gf and want a healthy option, my chocolate black bean cupcakes.
3/4 C unsalted butter (Earth balance for a dairy-free alternative)
4-6 C icing sugar, sifted
6 tbsp. milk (almond milk for a dairy-free alternative)
1 /2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 /2 C sweetened coconut flakes
Easter coloured jelly beans or Mini-Eggs
food colouring
cupcakes
1. Using a mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Add 2 C of icing sugar and beat at low speed until mixed. Gradually increase the speed of the mixer until the mixture reaches a creamy consistency.
2. Add the milk and the vanilla and beat. Add the remaining icing sugar and beat until the icing is creamy and has a thick enough consistency to pipe, adding more icing sugar or milk, if necessary. Add food colouring to the icing, if desired.
3. Pipe the icing onto the cupcakes using a star shaped decorating tip.
 |
| Mine totally flattened... I'm having such a hard time figuring out the right icing consistency with this dairy-free butter!! Good thing the coconut hid the icing ;) |
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the coconut flakes and food colouring (separate into several batches if you want to do different colours).
5. Sprinkle the coconut on top of the icing on the cupcakes.
Someone was more than dying to get into these as soon as they were ready.
After a first bite, he wasn't all too sure about the texture of the coconut.
But I guess the sweetness of the icing was enough to convince him to take a tentative second bite.
And from that point on, he was sold :)
Difficulty level: easy
Happy Easter everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment