I seriously love coconut. I breathe it. I can live off of it. 

And well it wouldn't quite be a thatgirlmel post if I didn't say that I'd die for it. Which I would.

These are suuuuper easy, and really just contain a whole lotta waiting. I have about the same amount

 of patience as a hyper 3 year old, so I don't make these as often as I'd like. 

You'll need coconut dough, which can be tricky to find if you don't have a baking supply store nearby. 

I get mine from cakeart.com. Its the best value I've found. 18oz for $4.99. Pretty good.

Also, I normally make these with coconut flakes as the garnish, but I ran out so I improvised.

Start by taking a tablespoon of the coconut dough and roll it up into a ball with your palm.

You can make as many as you'd like. There really isn't a limit here.

Place your coconut balls onto a plate wrapped in cling wrap. You can use wax or parchment paper, but most people already have cling wrap handy.

Refrigerate these for 10 minutes to firm them up.

Melt your chocolate chips. Using a spoon, dip a coconut ball into the chocolate. Toss is around until 

the entire thing is covered.

Place them on the plate. Don't worry if they're messy. This is just a "crumb coat" for instance. We're just getting the coconut covered with a hard shell so we can easily decorate them later.

Let these refrigerate for about 25 minutes, or until outer shell has hardened.

After 25-30 minutes, melt some more chocolate. 

Dip in the balls (I feel so naughty typing this), and cover it with its final coating.

Immediately toss them into or sprinkle them with anything you'd like. Like I said in the beginning, I usually just use coconut flakes, which I'd recommend the most for this. In this case, I just used these fun peanut butter and crushed oreo sprinkles I got at the supermarket.

Transfer them to another cling wrapped cover plate and let refrigerate for an additional 30 minutes.

... and they are ready to eat!

Mmmm, now take a bite! Delicious and easy! What more can we ask for??

Try it out.

S'mores are back in tooooown! 

To me, Summer = S'mores. Summer = campfires on breezy nights with a s'more in hand.

Too bad I live in NYC and the only campfire I get is when I accidentally leave a pot of water boiling on the 

stove unattended. Theres fire. Sparks. Lots of sparks. And the occasional glass of water to put it out.

This suuuuper quick recipe is fun and totally easy to make. It will take you all of 5 minutes to make, and all 

of 3 seconds to eat. Have your kids or kitchen challenged husbands help you! 

So, if you're lucky enough to live in an enchanted forest and get to have campfires on the reg, or like

 me - on the stove - this ones for you!

Start out by sticking a lollipop stick into your marshmallows. I found these pink and white ones at the supermarket which I thought were cute, but any ol' marshmallows you have is fine.

Set aside.

Take your graham crackers (I used Keebler), and crush them up. You can either cut them up finely on a cutting board, or grind them up in a blender/food processor. Or, you can be like me and put them in a ziploc bag, then go outside, and beat the living crap out of it on your front steps. Cooking is all about getting your frustrations out, right?

Melt up your chocolatttttte. I like saying chocolate like that. Choc-o-latte. Its the little things. 

I have no clue how much I used, but I did put it in the microwave for 1 minute and it was perfect.

Set aside.

Time for the fun part. Put on a flame from your stove, and carefully hold the marshmallow over it.

You want to make sure its toasting, but not melting. You want to just get it nice and soft.

Dip the tip of your pop into the melted chocolate. Go easy so it doesn't fall right off.

Then roll it around in your crushed up graham crackers. Yuuuum-o

Now I'll just show you a ton of pictures of them. 

Stick them into your styrofoam block to dry, or be an animal and just eat them now.

Annnnnnnd, you're done. So effing delicious I can't take it.

Try it out.

What do you get when you mix chocolate, cupcakes, and strawberries? In my case - breakfast, lunch, 

and dinner. But in the normal world, you get a delectable dessert that everybody will enjoy.

I woke up today and thought: I should make something mexican in honor of Cinco De Mayo.

Somewhere along the lines of tequila and margaritas (and maybe a few) I somehow decided 

upon cupcakes having absolutely nothing to do with Mexican culture. 

My mind really works in interesting ways.

Take your box mix and pour it into a nice big shiny bowl. I often get asked why I always use box mix instead of whipping up my own batch. We'll I could use the ol' excuse "My kids are hungry, I need to help them with homework. Theres laundry piling up, and I haven't vacuumed in over a month."

I could use that excuse. Except - I have no kids, theres no homework to be done, and I've already trained my guy to do the laundry. The vacuum part is true, though. I can't stand doing it. Wait.. what are we talking about again?

Oh right.. cupcakes. Once you get all your ingredients in, mix it up with a hand mixer. You could of course just use a spoon, but you'll need a llllllllllllllllllot of elbow grease. 

Line your cupcake tin and fill those suckers up a little more then 1/2 way.

I think the only reason I chose to make these cupcakes today, was because I've been dying to use my

pretty little brown liners I bought on Etsy. I have no clue who the seller was - but they are amazing and I cherish them every day of my life.

Now this part is totally optionally, and when I say optionally, I really mean - your cupcakes won't taste as good as mine if you skip this step. But no pressure.

Place a melt ( I used pink to match ) in the center of your cupcake.

Now I'm highly aware these came out looking like sunburnt boobies. Please don't remind me

like everyone else in my existence who saw these at my house.

Ok.. you can laugh at me. I probably deserve it.

Pop em in the oven at 350 for around 20 minutes. Check at the 18 minute mark just to make sure.

Now you should know by now if you follow my recipes that we ALWAYS have left over cake mix. 

Which of course means - another little project. Put the remaining mix into a pan and cook it up. 

Store that cake in plastic wrap for a rainy day.

Is it just me or does the sight of freshly baked cupcakes instantly make you feel happy?

 I'm gonna be using this handy little guy today. Compliments of my dearest boyfriend who saw this at PathMark and thought I'd might enjoy it. How did he know chocolate frosting with an extremely convenient tip was the way into my heart??? Train them to do the laundry and they suddenly know everything.

Again - this part is optional, but we all know what that means. 

You can totally use a fancy insert tip on a piping gun/bag. I figured if I didn't have to dirty

my icing gun, I wouldn't. So I just stuck the tip of this guy right in the center of my cupcake. 

Puncture a whole, and squeeze some chocolate frosting in the center. In the end I realized I really didn't go down deep enough, and you were barely able to tell anything was in the middle.

Don't be me, and get down and dirty in there.

- Ok, now they look like tan boobies - 

Get your strawberries out. Remember a clean strawberry is a happy strawberry.

I'm not gonna lie I was totally nervous to try this thing out. Something about pre-tipped frosting cans

freak me out, and I wasn't ready to let go of my wilton icing gun.

So I started..

And I started.. and started.. and swirled

And.. wow.. they look pretty good.

Not bad for $4.

Cut up your strawberries in half, and then in another half resulting in 4's.

Place a slice on top of your cuppy cake in any position you'd like. You can kinda get creative here

and just go nutso.

A slice here, slice there. They're AA-LOOKIN good!

So this is what my day looked like -

I think I'll end it with a nice bite. 

Try it out. 

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