Sesame Street Cupcakes

For my sons 1st birthday party I decided to use Sesame Street as the theme. I saw Lyndsey from Kitchen doughdough on a morning talkshow called Good Things Utah and she showed some Sesame Street cupcakes that she made. I thought they were adorable and I had to make them. So I looked around the internet and found another great blog called Lovely Sprinkles and her cupcakes were just what I was looking for, absolutely darling. So I took ideas from both places and made up my own and I thought they turned out pretty cute. I was impressed with myself since this it the first time I have ever decorated a cake/cupcakes. It was fun and really wasn't hard. Then I went to a Zurcher's a party supply store and they had baby Sesame Street plates, napkins, and decor that said "1" on them. So it all worked out perfectly! Happy 1st Birthday to my baby Garrett! I love you!!!

To make these simply bake some cupcakes, I doubled the recipe and used my white cream cake recipe that I've listed below because the top has a nice firm surface for decorating or you can use a cake mix but you'll want to freeze the cupcakes before decorating so that the top doesn't peel off and get crumbs in your frosting when you decorate them. I made my own frosting because it's good and you can make it a firmer consistency for decorating. For the fur on all my characters I used a grass/hair decorating tip. Elmo had red frosting for the fur, an orange peanut butter M&M for the nose, white candy melts for the eyes, a black tube of frosting with a small round decorating tip was used to make all the eyeballs, I carefully sawed back and forth on an Oreo cookie half with a serrated knife to make all the mouths. Cookie monster has blue frosting for fur and a Chips Ahoy cookie was cut in half to make his mouth. I then made his eyes offset to look googly. *Just a note: I learned that you have to add the eyes, nose, and mouths quickly after making the fur because the frosting dries and hardens a little and then the mouths and eyes fall off. I had to use the black frosting like glue to put them back on because I frosted all the cupcakes with fur first and then added on the faces, and the frosting had set up a little too much by then. Oscar has green frosting for fur and his mouth is an upside down Oreo half to look like a frown. I forgot to color some frosting brown so I just used the black frosting for his eyebrows. For liners I just used ones that matched their color of fur. One blog used foil liners for Oscar so that it looked like his trash can and I thought that was a good idea.

Frosting:

Use four sticks of margarine 2 cups (or butter), and whip it with a lot of powdered sugar (like two bags). Add in about 2 tsp of vanilla extract and 1 tsp almond extract (don't forget it). Then add a little milk so you don't burn out your mixer (4-8Tbsp). If your going to use liquid food coloring it takes a ton and will water down your frosting so make the frosting pretty stiff. I recommend using the food coloring paste then you don't have to worry about that. When your frosting tastes good (add more powdered sugar if it is too soft or tastes like butter) split it into three different bowls and add different food colorings. You can reserve a little to color brown to make Oscars eyebrows if you want. This made enough frosting for about 30 cupcakes.

Cream Cake Recipe

2 c flour

1 c sugar

1 c cream

1/4 c milk

3 eggs

pinch of salt

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

Mix together cream and sugar and add in flour then other ingredients. Bake at 350 degrees until toothpick come out clear when center of cake is poked. It stays a light color.