This Sunday, my friend Matt’s son, Oskar, celebrated his 3rd birthday.
After two weeks of rain, the skies finally cleared and the sun shone down on the park picnic.
It was a beautiful day, full of happy children, good food and time spent with friends.
Earlier this week I saw an adorable cookie monster cupcake idea on a new-to-me blog called applejacks. A few days later, Annie of Annie’s Eats wrote about the Sesame Street themed birthday party she threw for her son.
Inspired by both bloggers, I combined their ideas and created my own version of Sesame Street Cupcakes.
They were a hit, even with the Elmo-loving birthday boy!
Although these adorable cupcakes ended happily, they began with a very sad state of affairs.
My very first cupcake flop.
Although the recipe for funfetti cupcakes came from a website that I’ve used lots of times, for some reason, these cupcakes just didn’t work for me.
So, I stuck with what I know and made the perfect vegan vanilla cupcakes.
Light, fluffy, vanilla deliciousness!
I find it a bit ironic that the ‘traditional’ recipe was a disaster but the untraditional recipe worked like a charm.
Earlier in the week, I prepared the eyes and colored coconut flakes.
The eyes were made by melting white chocolate, placing spoonfuls onto parchment paper, then sticking a chocolate chip in the middle of each dollop.
The eyes took several hours to completely set so making them ahead is a good idea.
I’ve always been a bit partial towards died coconut flakes.
When I was young, my mom always made a 3D Easter basket scene by shaping rice crispy treats and coating them in beautiful Easter colored coconut.
I found a powdered food dye that created really vibrant colors.
For the frosting, I stuck with my vegan vanilla buttercream frosting, minus the vegan part… I only had real butter left.
So I guess this was straight up vanilla buttercream then.
I generously frosted the cupcakes…
then placed them upside down in the coconut flakes.
After a few rolls in the coconut flakes, the fuzzy ‘fur’ was stuck and ready to go.
Although Annie’s cupcakes were adorable with their skillfully piped frosting fur, I love the way the coconut looks so fuzzy and puppet-like.
In addition to the chocolate eyes, I used gummy treats (which are a cinch to cut,) chocolate chip cookies, oreo cookies and nutella to decorate the cupcake characters.
Introducing the Sesame Street Characters!
Cookie Monster (my favorite)
Big Bird
Oscar the Grouch
Elmo
Although Big Bird looks a bit out of proportioned and fearful for his life, I’m really happy with how the cupcakes turned out.
They made everyone at the party smile.
Well, everyone except Big Bird that is.
Eating Abroad
