I first made these Cookie Monster cupcakes about 5 years ago and everyone raved about them. I don’t know why because they were shocking bad. Practice makes perfect however and I’ve got them turning out pretty well now. The trick is to use a good quality food colouring. I use Sugarflair Blue Ice which gives a very vibrant blue colour. They look a lot more complicated than you’d think but are easy enough to make. The good thing about these cupcakes is that you don’t need any fancy piping work.
I use a bog standard recipe for the cupcakes. Equal amounts of self-raising flour, butter and sugar. Can’t beat a classic recipe! Since there’s a lot of icing on the cupcakes you don’t need to do anything out of the ordinary with the cake itself. Since there’s coconut in the icing I like to make the cupcakes lemon flavoured but vanilla also works equally as well.
After you’ve made the cupcakes allow them to cool before icing. You don’t want the butter in the icing melting.
To decorate the cupcakes, first, make the eyes so that they are ‘set’ by the time you need to use them. Melt about 20g of the chocolate chips. Use the melted chocolate to stick chocolate chips onto the white buttons. Cookie monster’s eyes are a bit all over the place so they don’t need to be perfect. Leave to cool.
Make the buttercream icing by beating the butter until soft and slowly add the icing sugar. If the buttercream is a bit stiff add a small drop of milk to loosen it up. Add the food colouring and mix until it’s all combined.
Next, make the cookie monsters fur by colouring the coconut. This can be a bit time consuming to get all the bits of coconut covered. If you find that the food colouring (particularly gel) isn’t spreading you can add some water to help it along.
This is what the coconut looks like with Goodall’s blue food colouring.
This is what it looks like using the Sugarflair. As you can see the Sugarflair gives a much more intense, cartoon-like colour which is perfect for these particular cupcakes.
To assemble the cupcakes first spread some buttercream onto the cupcakes.
Dip the cupcakes into the blue coconut and ensure it’s fully covered. Next, make a slit in the cupcake that will be big enough to fit half a cookie. Place the cookie into the cupcake. Last but not least, add the eyes.
And that’s it!
Recipe Below:
Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 125 g Self-Raising Flour
- 125 g Butter
- 125 g Caster Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases.
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Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale.
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Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stir in the vanilla extract or if making lemon, lemon zest.
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Fold in the flour adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency.
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Half fill the paper cases with the batter.
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Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean.
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Set aside to cool for completely before icing.
Cookie Monster Icing
Ingredients
- 250 g Icing Sugar
- 125 g Butter
- 100 g Desiccated Coconut
- 100 g Chocolate Chips
- 2 packets White Chocolate Buttons
- 10-12 Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Blue Food Colouring
Instructions
Buttercream:
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Start by making the buttercream. Beat the butter until soft and slowly add in the icing sugar.
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If the mixture is a bit stiff add in a tiny bit of milk.
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Add in a teaspoon of the blue food colouring and continue mixing until it's all combined.
Blue Fur Coat:
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Put the coconut in a bowl and add some food colouring. Keep mixing. It will take some time. If you find that the blue colouring isn't spreading add some water to help it along.
Eyes:
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To make the eyes melt about 20g of the chocolate chips. Use the melted chocolate as 'glue' to stick the chocolate chips to the white chocolate buttons.
To Assemble:
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Spread some of the buttercream onto the cupcakes
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Dip the cupcake into the coconut
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Using a knife, carefully make a slit in the cupcake. Make it big enough to fit half a cookie.
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Add the eyes.
