Can You Tell Me How to Get...

...how to get to Sesame Street?

I pondered for a long time about how to start my first post. Should I start with a funny story from my childhood? Rant about a rude driver I encountered on the way home? Post a meaningful set of song lyrics? Nah.

I've opted for my latest baking project instead.

You know, I really had absolutely zero reason to make these cupcakes, especially considering the leftover 4th of July cookies, homemade ice cream, and three bags of candy that have been taking up room in my kitchen. Nevertheless, my hubby had found a photo of a Cookie Monster cupcake on a site he was browsing and showed it me. I was smitten.

It looked nothing like this.

Inspired by the photo, I decided I wanted to try my hand at some cute little Sesame Street cupcakes! Unfortunately, they really didn't turn out the way I was imagining.

Poor Elmo got his nose smooshed.

They basically ended up being giant gobs of frosting on top of tasty cupcakes, more or less. But at least I got some practice using my pastry bags and icing tips my mother-in-law bought me for Christmas!

To make these cupcakes, I decided to forgo the homemade batter option for a change and bought 2 boxes of Funfetti cake mix. I baked 48 total cupcakes, 24 with baking liners and 24 without. Then, for each character, I trimmed the outside of one bare cake and attached it to the top of a cake with a liner via some homemade buttercream frosting. I used some more buttercream (white, to be exact) around the edges of the bottom cupcake and covered them in sprinkles.

Everybody loves sprinkles!

As for the character's head, I used the grass Wilton tip (tip #233) to cover the top cupcake in "fur." I used the #5 tip for the eyes and Elmo's nose, and the #2 tip for the pupils and mouths. Big Bird's beak is made of shortbread cookie covered in yellow icing and I just broke off pieces of chocolate chip cookies to stuff into Cookie Monster's mouth.

All in all, it was a definitely a learning experience. I just wish the two days it took me to make them resulted in cuter characters! Oh well. There's always pink frosting!