I'm a fairly inexperienced decorator (I made the 3-D duck cake for my daughter's first birthday last year and set it on a 1/2 sheet cake with blue gel around it to look like the duck was on a lake. It actually turned out quite well!), but I have a couple of months to get my technique down for this next adventure.

We're having a Sesame Street party for my daughter's 2nd birthday and I want to make cupcakes with Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Oscar & Big Bird on them (one character per cupcake). My husband and I have been talking out design options (he's actually the more artistic between us), but I though I would ask for suggestions and advice from you guys.

We're thinking of frosting all the cupcakes in a white background and them adding the characters on top of that, although I had originally thought of icing the entire cupcake the color of the character and adding their facial features to that (more like the "Sesame Smiles" party line of napkins, plates, cups, etc, which we'll be using at the party). Is there any trick to make sure that the cupcakes end up fairly flat? Should I just trim them down to a flat surface after they're cooled? Does anyone have any images of similar decorations on cupcakes or cookies that they could share?

I'm planning on getting the new Wilton Cupcake stand that will hold 38 cupcakes to display these on and I really want them to look nice and taste good, too. In my mind, I'm envisioning all of the colors and I think it will look really festive. Plus my daughter will be thrilled to have all her "friends" represented.

I'd love any and all advice that you have to share. I'm planning on doing a practice run in a couple of weeks and the actual party isn't until Sept 17th, so I have time to practice again, if need be.

Thanks in advance!

Kim

I found a few pics. Hope this helps!

I love that Cookie Monster! He's exactly what I was originally thinking of when I envisioned doing these. I can image all of the characters in this style, except for Big Bird. I guess I just can't figure out what to do about his beak. Should I make something that will extend out past the edge of the cupake and frost that as the beak?

Please keep the ideas and pictures coming!

Thanks again!

Kim

I love the idea of making the cup cakes look like the party wear. I LOVE THAT PARTY WEAR!!!!!!! I think if you turn your oven down while baking it helps to get a flater top. A trick i use when making cakes is push down on the tops to flaten them out alittle. Im sure it would work with the cup cakes as well. You could also practice with the amount of batter you put in your cups. Hope i have been helpful

Kim,
To get all of your cupcakes level, lay a large cutting board on top of your cupcakes while they are still cooling in the pan. I learned this trick from cali4dawn when she was here, and it works great!

Here is how to make oscar the grouch
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/parents/activity/article.php?contentId=14969&
Here is ernie
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/parents/activity/article.php?contentId=22601&
For bert this is for a cake, but i'm sure you can do it on a cupcake http://www.sesameworkshop.org/parents/activity/article.php?contentId=7294&
Here is a pic of bigbird cake. You can do this on a cupcake. Just shorten the beak and outline it.. Good luck!

http://www.cindascreativecakes.com/Photos/jpgs/cakes/fullsize/IMG_5348.jpg

Sorry, have no ideas for big bird.

maybe you could use fondant or candy clay to form the beak. or you could get some of those baby sugar cones and use those covered in icing. if you cant find the baby ones you might be able to cut the bottoms off of the regular sized ones.

Or if you wanted to make the beaks out of royal icing or color flow, and make sure they are dried really good, and make extras just in case of breakage.

Thanks so much for all the ideas and the photos. I had looked on the Sesame Street website, but I never came across those cupcakes. I must have looked in all the wrong places!

I had thought about the cone idea for Big Bird's beak and about the clay or fondant. I may try those out this weekend and see if I can come up with something I like. Otherwise, I think I may need to do them out of royal icing. I guess the benefit to that technique is that it would be one thing that I could get done ahead of time and one less thing to be trying to do the day before or the day of the party.

Thanks again for all your help. This is a fabulous board and I just knew that someone would be able to help me out.

Have a great day, everyone!

Kim

I am so glad that I found this post! I too have to bake a cake for this weekend with a Sesame Street theme. I am doing a three tier cake (plus cup cakes as extra) and I was not sure how to do the cup cakes!

The lady that I am doing the cake for wants a white cake with hardly any color because she thinks it is messy so I am going to do color flow images of the characters with color ball trim around each layer. I wanted some color to make it look festive so I am going to do the cupcake stand as well ~ Plus I am trying to impress a potential client that will be there.

Let us know how your cake turns out and I will do the same!

bj

I have made Big Bird cupcakes before using candy corn for the beak, don't have a pic though! They turned out cute!

i had thought of candy corn but thought they would be too small. guess i was wrong

how did you make the blue colour for the cookie monster cupcakes? I loved them and would like to try and make some of my own.