Elmo Cupcakes

My daughter had a birthday this week and she really likes Elmo, so when I saw a picture of an Elmo cupcake on pinterest, my husband and I thought it'd be perfect for her birthday! There weren't any directions, just a picture, but they are pretty easy to figure out.

From the picture I saw it seemed the person made red velvet cupcakes and in one of the comments they mentioned using a peanut m&m for the nose, but here is what I did:

Elmo Cupcakes:

Elmo face:

orange peanut butter M&Ms

1 bag large marshmallows *cute the marshmallows in half

1 package Oreo cookies *pull them apart, scrap off the filling and break in half

black edible frosting gel

frosting bag and tip

Cupcakes:

I had a boxed cake mix I wanted to use up anyway so that's what I used, but you could use whatever kind of cake/cupcake batter you would like. Mine was chocolate:). I used the muffin/cupcake wrappers as well.

Butter cream Icing:

*Again you could use whatever frosting you want. We used my sister in laws (Audrey Tiberius) Butter cream Icing

1/4c butter or margarine softened (not melted)

1/4c white shortening

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

dash of salt

4 c powdered sugar

red food coloring

Milk *start with VERY, VERY little milk-like a tablespoon or less. In this situation a little milk goes a long way. If you add too much you can add more powdered sugar but just add a very little at a time to get the consistency you like. 

Mix together all the ingredients except the powdered sugar and milk. Add the powdered sugar and just enough milk to make it the consistency you want. We then added some red food coloring.

Once the cupcakes are cooled you can start your Elmo creations. Use the frosting tip to frost the cupcakes in a way that it looks like fur. Squeeze a little out and then pull up quickly and continue. I have to admit, this takes a while and hurts your hands. I think between my husband and I we did about 8 this way and then the rest I frosted with a knife. The ones with the frosting tip looked better but the other ones were fine too.

Then cut a marshmallow in half, stick the cut side down making sure they are close together. Put some of the edible gel (you could probably melt chocolate and put it on with a toothpick or something) for the pupils.
Add the nose with the m&m side down and then place the oreo cookie below that. Voila! Hello Elmo:)

 Just this morning my daughter went in to the kitchen pointing to the leftover cupcakes saying "Elmo cake, Elmo cake, snack"...the cookie mouths do get a little soft and weird after sitting on the cupcake for a while but guarantee my toddler doesn't care. 

Link to the original picture I saw http://www.flickr.com/photos/60194687@N00/3919878115/