Sesame Street shamelessly dominated my pre-school days and so when I saw a picture of these (amazing) cupcakes online I had to try them. Whilst slightly away from the basics that a student cupboard stocks, food colouring and icing can come in handy for a flatmates birthday or an impromptu cake-making session of these extremely cute Cookie Monster cupcakes.
Ingredients for the cupcakes:
110g Butter or Margarine
110g Sugar
110g Self-raising Flour (1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda if plain flour)
2 Eggs
1-2 tablespoons of milk
Ingredients for the decoration:
140g Butter
280g Icing Sugar
Blue Food Colouring
White Chocolate Buttons
Chocolate Chips
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes between 8-12 cupcakes, Costs approx. £4-£6
For a simple cupcake mix add butter/margarine and all the sugar to a bowl, mixing together until the butter is a smooth texture. Add the eggs and mix in and then add the flour a little at a time ensuring that the mixture reaches a dropping consistency. If it’s too thick add a little milk or, if too runny, add a little more flour. Bake for 15-20 minutes at approx. 180 degrees and once golden brown leave to cool.
Once completely cool you can start on your decorations. The easy way is to buy some ready-made icing (between £1-£2), but the cheaper way is to cream some butter with icing sugar and blue food colouring until it’s a thick-ish consistency that won’t drop easily from a spoon. Add more food colouring to get the desired shade of blue. Apply generously to the cupcake and using a fork make lines and points that look like Cookie Monster’s fur. Add white chocolate buttons for the eyes and use the icing to ‘glue’ on chocolate chips. If you happen to have black edible markers or small amounts of black icing lying around then use these instead! Adding a cookie is optional but can be achieved by using a sharp knife to cut a horizontal line into the top of the cupcake (about 2/3 of the way down) and inserting half a cookie into the gap.
Making them look uniform requires a lot of practice or a skilled hand, but a slightly large Cookie Monster or a smaller one does at least add a little quirkiness to this homemade childhood-inspired treat. If Elmo is your Sesame Street favourite, replace the blue food colouring with red and add an orange sweet for his nose. These decorated cakes are a lot easier than they may look, the hardest part is destroying your creation, but they’re so yummy it’s quite difficult to resist…!
