SESAME STREET CUPCAKES

How cute are these? I don't mean to toot my own horn or anything but these cupcakes are a child's dream! We all celebrated my cousin Orin's 1st birthday last week and since he's just starting to wrap his cute little mind around the whole "Sesame St. phenomenon", I figured what better way to introduce some of the characters to him then by making sesame street cupcakes!  I plucked out, with what I think are the most recognizable two Sesame Street characters, Cookie monster and Elmo.  I took variations of ideas I found on the Internet combined with my own and came up with these cupcakes.

I used both chocolate and vanilla cakes as well as 2 batches of this buttercream frosting  tinted 1 batch blue and the other Christmas red.  Before I began decorating, I had an abundance of all my supplies out and ready to be used. 

For Cookie Monster: I cut several Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies in half for his mouth as well as cutting large marshmallows in half using kitchen shears for his eyes.  I had my Wilton black icing gel and blue buttercream ready to go. To assemble: I used the star tip (#16 or #18) to pipe a blue 'furry'-like texture around the entire top of the cupcake. Next, I placed the 2 halves of marshmallows for the eyes together by snipping a little smidgen at the corners where the marshmallows joined so that they would stick together.  Lastly, I put drops of Wilton black icing gel atop the marshmallows in a "googly" kind of way.  This black icing gel is fantastic! It really holds its shape and it comes out glossy giving you a realistic looking eyeball.  They come in mini tubes, however these little tubes can take you a long way.  I only used one tube for both Elmo and Cookie Monster with some left over!

For Elmo: I used all chocolate cuppies for the Elmo's mainly in part because I was saving myself an extra step with making Elmo's black mouth as the chocolate cuppie was 'self-mouthed'!  Using the same star tip as Cookie Monster, I piped a 'furry'-like texture around the top of the cuppie leaving only enough room for a half moon shape (mouth). Another option would be to actually use the black icing gel for the mouth portion of the character, but I personally found that to be unnecessary added work. I used orange peanut M&M's for the nose and used the same method for the marshmallow eyes as I did for Cookie Monster, only not making the eyes so googly. You see, Elmo is clearly more sophisticated then Cookie Monster. I topped some of the cupcakes with these fantastic HAPPY BIRTHDAY candles that come as individual letters.  Orin loved the cupcakes as seen below...

Note* Unfortunately I forgot my really great Nikon SLR camera so the pictures didn't come out as great as I would have liked..forgive me ;) Also, the vanilla and chocolate cakes were DELICIOUS. Make them.