Today is the last day of daycare at baby Stroller’s daycare momma’s house. The five toddlers are headed off to preschool on Monday and his daycare momma is leaving for her native Sri Lanka for the summer early next week. To celebrate this huge milestone, I made the kiddos vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and dropped them off with the baby today.


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There are a lot of end-of-year celebrations going on right now, so I thought I’d share the recipe with you. Nothing to celebrate right now? This vanilla cake recipe is perfect for a one year old’s birthday party or you could add a little red or blue food color and make a gender reveal cake!

Vanilla Cupcakes 

1 c. butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
2 c. sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 T. vanilla extract
1 c. milk
2 1/2 c. flour
1 T. baking powder
1 t. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 24 cupcake tins with paper liners

1. With the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Mix in vanilla
3. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients, whisking to combine
4. Add dry ingredients to butter/sugar mixture alternating with milk and beating well after each addition, until batter is smooth
5. Divide the batter evenly among the 24 prepared cupcake tins and bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes until the centers spring back when touched and a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out with a few crumbs on it. You could also make a two layer cake by using 9” round cake pans and increasing the baking time – make sure to grease and flour your cake pans
6. Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before carefully removing the cupcakes to racks. Cool completely before frosting

Chocolate Frosting
This recipe makes 2 cups of frosting, which is enough for a thin layer on 24 cupcakes. I doubled the recipe for my cupcakes.

1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, melted
2/3 c. cocoa powder
3 c. powdered sugar
+/- 1/3 c. milk
1 t. vanilla extract

1. With the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, combine melted butter and cocoa
2. Add vanilla extract
3. Alternate adding milk and sugar, beating after each addition until spreading consistency
4. Frost cupcakes
5. Celebrate!

I’m using the term “celebrate” very loosely since I’m really sad to see the little ones leave. They’re so much fun to play with when I pick baby S up at the end of the day. And I’m super sad that baby S won’t get to see his favorite person for two whole months. It’s a long time and I’m worried he won’t even recognize his daycare momma when she gets home. Plus, when she returns in September baby S won’t be the only baby anymore. So much change!

What end-of-school-year changes are you facing right now? Anything worth celebrating with a delicious cake?