Cookie Monster Cupcakes

All the ingredients used to make these cakes

As tomorrow is comic relief, we are having a baking competition at work where we can bake cakes, bring them in and the best looking and tasting wins a prize (and the glory) whilst, most importantly, others can buy the cakes therefore raising money for charity.

I decided if I was going to bake a cake, then I was going to BAKE a cake and make it good!! So I made cookie monster cupcakes.

I used that old and simple sponge cake recipe of 100g each of butter, caster sugar and self-raising flour with a touch of baking powder and then two eggs. Whap it all together in a bowl and fling it around a bit with a wooden spoon until its a smooth batter. Try not to eat the batter; raw eggs and all that but, more importantly, less cakes later on!

Then fill muffin cases about two thirds full with the batter. I bought these gorgeous Britiain themed cupcake cases on offer in Sainsburys.

Cute cupcakes cases

I put them in the oven on a low heat. Recipes I looked at say on gas mark 4 but our oven is electric and doesn't have numbers on the dial so I just turned it down low and then kept checking the cakes regularly. They were done after about half an hour when they were springy to touch. While I waited I kept with the cooking theme and watched the new series of Masterchef. I'm routing for James.

So, I've got my baked cakes and they're cooled but they're looking pretty naked. To make the buttercream icing I added one part butter to two parts icing sugar and then added blue food colouring. As it turns out, you need a huge amount of food colouring to turn the icing a good shade of blue so I added another one part of icing sugar again to make a mouldable buttercream icing consistency. I spooned about three quarters of the icing onto the cupcakes so that the tops were completely covered, then the rest was piped on. I didn't have an piping bag or nozzles or anything, I just put the icing in a sandwich bag and sniped a tiny bit off the corner. This way, you can make the cool furry effect of the cookie monster.

This piping business took patience and a steady hand. And buckets of time. I also found that a bit of David Guetta and Jay-Z helped. Perked my up when my hand was cramping up and all that. Once this is all done though the best bit is next - adding the cookies! I broke them in half and shoved the bigger half into the icing and into the sponge a bit too. Then I added soft mints with a dot of black icing in the middle for eyes. And voila!! Some pretty awesome cookie monster cupcakes! I really want the feel that winning glory...

They were much easier than I thought to make, though I was quite scared after seeing the failblog attempt. I would definitely make these again. Now I just have to get them to work tomorrow in one piece....

What else have people done for comic relief??
H x