If not to bake you two dozen red velvet cupcakes for your twenty-second birthday party celebration.

Sofya, one of my best friends, turned twenty-two at midnight. This girl lets me borrow her clothes, picks me up at abandoned train stations at three in the morning (okay, so it was just that one time but still, I could’ve easily been murdered had she not saved me), listens to my paranoid life theories, and has been faithfully doing so since our freshman year of high school. I wanted to do something special for her and one just can’t go wrong with red velvet.

I’d made them once before but this time, I used a different recipe.

First, I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet in two separate bowls. Then I gradually combined the three and poured the batter into a muffin tin.

In the oven they went for 20 min, in two batches, and voila.

Then I let them cool completely on a cooling rack, iced them with cream cheese frosting and dipped them into toasted sweetened coconut flakes.

When the time came to eat the ‘cakes, I was no longer in the mood for sweets so I didn’t even try them. But everyone who did gave me two thumbs up with full mouths and frosting on their lips, which I took to be a good sign.

Click here for the full recipe