Happy Birthday Elmo Cupcakes & Our Sesame Street Chanukah Give Away!

Two years ago this morning at 12:01 am I had my beautiful sweet angelic baby girl. The bliss, the joy, THE TERRIBLE TWOS!  Yes it is true, my beautiful sweet baby girl that I held in my arms that glorious morning, is now an opinionated, strong willed, super curious,incredibly energetic, deliciously sweet loving, funny to the core 2 year old toddler- my little baby no more.

Her love for all things Elmo made it very easy for me to decide on what type of Birthday cupcakes I would make for her to take to her playgroup. I saw an image of the Elmo cupcakes on pinterest.com and realized this would be easy to make and copy at home. However the image did not have a link to instructions on how-to, but with a little help and luck, I think I did pretty well.

After help from my cousin Ari K. sorting out the colored chocolate lentils for the nose and eyes, and realizing that if I cut the regular size marshmallows in half, I would have a sticky side perfect for adhering the brown lentils for the eye balls, I had this Elmo cupcake mastered. I also mistakenly bought sandwich cookies that had a chocolate and vanilla side for the mouth, and think that when I do this again it will be an all chocolate sandwich cookie for a more accurate looking mouth.

You can really use any type of candy for these cupcakes, so check out your local candy store for orange/brown gumballs, jellybeans, M&M’s,and more, the possibilities are endless When the kids see these cupcakes, it really doesn’t matter what is actually on the cupcake – they will go crazy for it – GUARANTEED!

Happy Birthday My Tunie Girl!

Happy Birthday

Elmo Cup Cakes

Makes 18 cup cakes

This is a great project to get your kids involved with – they will love sorting out the colors and decorating the Elmo faces.

Ingredients:

Duncan Hines Cake Mix (I used red velvet for the Elmo cupcakes, but you can use any kind)

For the Butter Cream:

2 1/2 sticks margarine or butter, softened

2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tbsp. non-dairy whip topping or heavy cream’

12-13  drops red food coloring

For the face:

36 mini brown chocolate lentils or mini chocolate chips

18 large marshmallows, cut in half

18 orange or pink small gumballs or colored chocolate lentils  ( I used Leibers brand mini chocolate lentils)

18 Chocolate sandwich cookies cut into halves

Directions:

Make the cupcakes and allow them to cool completely. As the cupcakes are cooling make your butter-cream frosting.

In a mixer  with the whisk attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add the confectionery sugar and salt; beat at medium –low speed until most of sugar is moistened about 45 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and beat on medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds, add the vanilla, and cream and the food coloring and beat on medium speed until color has fully incorporated.

To assemble the cup cake:

1. Pipe the red frosting onto the cupcakes  – I used a medium sized flower tip and made many little flowers covering the whole cupcake

2. Once the cupcake is fully frosted, cut the marshmallow in half and stick 1 brown lentil on each sticky side of the marshmallow making the eyeballs ( I found it was more “Elmo-like” to put the lentils slightly askew and close together )

3. Place the uncut side down of the marshmallows into the cream. Then place the orange nose lentil.

4. Cut your sandwich cookies in half , and stick them slightly up in the air where the mouth should be.

I realized after starting this project that I could really make all the sesame characters just by changing the icing color and some of the candy features, but I was ill prepared and will definitely consider doing these for Purim this year.

Cookie Monster:  (blue icing, 1/2 chocolate chip cookie, white gumballs with chocolate icing piped on as eye balls)

Big Bird: (Yellow icing piped on in a sun pattern, white M&M’s or lentils, blue, black and red icing, yellow chocolate piped into triangles that were left to harden and then put on as the beak)

I recently saw these cupcakes on line at www.bakerella.com and I now know what I am going to attempt the next birthday party – so much fun!

ROSH CHODESH CHANUKAH  GIVEAWAY

In the spirit of the upcoming Chanukah holiday – we at Kosherstreetare going to try and do as many GIVE AWAYS as we could possibly get our hands on!

Appropriately enough I am starting with one of my favorite ones!

A FREE CD of

Shalom Sesame’s Chanukah DVD: The Missing Menorah

A Winner will be picked to receive their very own copy of this fantastic Sesame Street DVD about Chanukah!

Your kids are going to love it as much as my daughter loves hers!

TO ENTER ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS COMMENT HERE WHAT YOUR FAVORITE SESAME STREET CHARACTER IS & LIKE & SHARE THIS POST OF OUR CHANUKAH GIVEAWAY ON YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE

Chanukah: The Missing Menorah DVD Synopsis:

It’s time to celebrate Chanukah in Israel! Grover’s bringing the latkes and all is well until Anneliese gets caught in a game of tag with a chicken and loses her special menorah… just as Chanukah is about to begin! Can her friends find the missing menorah in time? Guest appearance by Debi Mazar. Running time of 28 minutes.

Bonus extras of 22 minutes include Grover’s Video Player “Aleph Bet Song,” Karaoke: “The Missing Menorah.”

Watch a sneak peek of this video here