Sesame Street Cupcakes

Today was the polar opposite of yesterday. Today, I had no problem sleeping in until 9:30 a.m., as it was completely gloomy and rainy outside. Still, I had a bunch of things on the agenda that needed to get done, so it wasn't exactly a lazy day. It sure did feel nice to sleep in, though!

My sister-in-law, Melissa, asked me to make a birthday cake for Logan's first birthday, as I did for Brendan's first (and second) birthdays. She told me that the theme for the party was going to be Sesame Street, and left it up to me from there.

A few weeks back, when I did Google searches to look for inspiration for cakes, I came across some really cute character cupcakes. Since I knew I was going to be doing a huge cake for Poppy's birthday just one week before, I figured cupcakes would be a nice change of pace. I was right--these seemed like very little work compared to the fire truck cake. The most tedious part was actually coloring all of the icing--so many colors! After that, they actually came together pretty quickly.

Although I found pictures of a TON of different characters in cupcake form, I decided to stick with four of them--Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and Oscar the Grouch. Also, to make sure all things are "fair" among brothers, I had to make Logan a smash cake like I did for Brendan. I decided to keep it pretty simple and pipe the Sesame Street sign on top, to tie everything together with the cupcakes.

A closer look at the cupcakes:

All of the characters' eyes are made with mini marshmallows that I cut in half with kitchen scissors. I piped the little pupils on with black buttercream. The mouths for Elmo, Cookie Monster and Oscar are all made out of half an Oreo cookie. I piped Elmo's fur with a star tip, and his nose is an orange miniature gumball. Cookie Monster's fur is piped with tip #233, used for hair, fur, grass, etc.

Big Bird's feathers are done with a leaf tip. I made the pieces for his beak using yellow candy melts. I drew the shape on a piece of paper, then traced it using the melted candy. I let them dry, then used two of them for each Big Bird (one for the top part of the beak, one for the bottom). I piped on Big Bird's eyelids using a light blue buttercream. Like Cookie Monster, Oscar's fur is also done with the #233 tip. One of the things that makes Oscar look like Oscar is the eyebrows, so I drew those on using brown buttercream.

And a closer look at the cake.

These were fun to make. I loved Sesame Street as a kid!