This is not a cooking blog...

...but I have to write about these cupcakes I made yesterday.

Some of my sibs and I planned this awesome surprise party for our parents to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. A dessert party. The best kind of party.

I was supposed to bring cupcakes. So I bought the foil cupcake liners and Hersey kisses (foil wrapped) all to complement the theme of a Silver Anniversary. My thought was chocolate ganche frosting with a Hersey kiss on top (still wrapped, so be careful). But I thought a white buttercream with the silver liners would be prettier. Seriously. I actually had this conversation with myself in my brain. What to do??

I made the cake part of the cupcakes and stressed about this agonizing decision while getting ready for church. Ganache is the clear winner in the taste department; buttercream the frontrunner on elegance. But without some kind of serious boost, buttercream was never ever going to take the cake. Elegance or taste? Which one should be compromised?

I COULD NOT DECIDE.

Then it struck me: Coconut. This is the answer.

I decided that I could smash coconut on the top of the buttercream covered cupcake and it would be awesome.

YAY, BUTTERCREAM WINS!

It would be like a hostess snoball. And who doesn't love the coco/choco combo? My parents would both love it. I knew this was going to be a hit with them and I felt like the best daughter ever.

So I whipped up the buttercream. But it just tasted blah. I don’t have any vanilla, didn’t want to use almond extract and knew that coconut flavor in the buttercream was the only thing I wanted. But alas, I did not have any.

As I stood in front of the mixer staring down into that bowl of lost dreams and dashed hopes the heavens parted, and an idea so amazing, so wonderful, and so perfect that it can only have been whispered from a more celestial sphere floated down and struck my grateful heart.

i …c …e ...c …r …e …a …m

I had a half eaten pint of coconut ice cream in my freezer. Totally normal.
I melted in and mixed it into the frosting. Not as normal.

YAY, IT TASTED AWESOME!

The cupcakes were perfect. They were elegant and beautiful. My parents loved them and they rivaled ganache in the flavor department.

The moral of the story is this: always have ice cream on hand. It is the often overlooked pantry essential.

My parents are pretty amazing; they deserved amazing cupcakes.

Mom and Day,
Congratulations on 25 years of happiness.
Wishing you many, many more.
Love, me.