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Keeping little kids entertained can be an exercise in endurance. Your mind’s constantly spinning, trying to come up with ways to entertain that aren’t screentime, screentime, screentime (or involve endless cleanup). These Sesame Street-inspired cupcakes are a perfect afternoon activity—or birthday surprise—to keep the kids busy. Plus, they’ll eat up some of the mess, so everybody wins! As long as they don’t color the walls in frosting or anything.
Of course, I’m not affiliated with Sesame Street or HBO or PBS in any way; this is purely a fan tribute, using all everyday, basic items, so the average person (or kiddo) can easily DIY ’em. (That’s also why they look a lot like the Times Square knockoff version of your favorite monsters, rather than 100 percent spot-on. I tried, OK?! Hahaha.)
How to Make Elmo-Inspired Cupcakes:
What You’ll Need:
- 6-8 drops red food coloring
- 16 ounces vanilla buttercream frosting
- 18 baked chocolate cupcakes, cooled
- 18 orange mini M&Ms
- Red sanding sugar
- 36 mini marshmallows
- Black gel frosting
How to Decorate Them:
Check out the video above for a quick rundown of what to do. You can use store-bought frosting or make it from scratch, but either way, I recommend dying the frosting red, even though you’re dipping it in red sanding sugar. That way you don’t wind up with white patches poking through.
No sanding sugar? You can draw light strokes in the frosting with a fork to get a textured, furry look, just like we did with the Cookie Monster cupcakes below.
How to Make Cookie Monster-Inspired Cupcakes:
What You’ll Need:
- 6-8 drops blue food coloring
- 16 ounces vanilla buttercream frosting
- 18 baked cupcakes, cooled
- 18 marshmallows
- Black gel frosting
- 9 Oreos
How to Decorate Them:
Check out the video above for a quick rundown of what to do. You can make this project even easier by using candy eyes instead of a squished marshmallow, but that’s your call.
No matter how you go about them, we hope you enjoy them!
Psst: Noticed that rogue Peppa Pig in the photo at the top of this post? We’ve got a tutorial for those cupcakes too. Oh, and if these videos look familiar, you may have noticed I also shared the demo with PureWow.