Elmo

Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy!

This probably doesn’t seem very “Bake and Destroy” of me, but: 1) Destroyer or not, I’m a mama and sooner or later, all mamas make Elmo cakes and 2) Everyone I know grew up watching sesame Street, so why not Teno and his friends too?
Actually, I called my friend Jessy yesterday to see if she had any special gift requests for her son Viktor’s first birthday and also to ask her if she’d heard the news that a guy we both knew is now a woman. Yeah. She told me the sad news that she’d been sick and unable to make Viktor the sweet birthday cake she had planned. So after hearing the news that Viktor is pretty into the red-furred menace these days I made a dozen of these and brought them along to the party. Jessy’s mom made an amazing cake that I ended up eating instead of these (oh, she’s a reader by the way and she should probably send me that recipe when she sees this,) but the kids thought they were fun and they were really easy to make.
I posted the pictures on Flickr and had a few people send me questions about how they were made so I figured I’d share here.

So, you’ll need cupcakes, buttercream (or another frosting that is stiff enough to pipe fur with) big marshmallows, and some kind of orange candy for a nose. I used gum drops, you could also use Dots. I’m not specifying quantities because I don’t know how many you’ll be making, but each Elmo only needs one marshmallow because you cut them in half.

Bake and cool your cupcakes, I made my favorite chocolate buttermilk recipe. Then, make whatever frosting you’re going to use and color it red. My favorite red comes from Americolor. It’s really vibrant and it doesn’t leave a bitter flavor. I added a little orange oil to a vanilla buttercream. As long as your frosting is white it’s going to be easy to color. You could either reserve a tiny bit of this frosting and color it black or use pre-made black decorator’s icing or food gel.

I used a Wilton 233 tip, I know the numbers and names vary from company to company, but essentially it’s a grass tip. It makes skinny strands of frosting. I’m actually not even going to try to make this process any simpler because it’s explained here and it doesn’t really get any easier than that. So cover the cupcake in red squiggly frosting and that’s that.

Cut your marshmallows in half and on the non-sticky side pipe a black pupil. You could also use chocolate chips or Mn’Ms but I think the more dimension you add to the pupil the more psychotic Elmo starts to look. I piped a little black dot, let it dry for a second and then squished it flat with my finger. The marshmallows will stick on the frosting, just place them at the top of Elmo’s head. Plop your orange candy right near the eyes for the nose and then use black icing or a string of black licorice for the mouth. I don’t know any kids who will eat black licorice, so I used frosting.

That’s it, easy right? I’m working on a recipe for Echo magazine’s macaroni and cheese competition. I’m not going to give it away but I’ll leave you to ponder this: mac and cheese cupcakes.

Here’s the birthday boy with his awesome parents who Tony and I love despite hating almost everyone.

I would also like to give a shout out to all of Teno’s baby friends because babies are way cooler than not-babies. So what up to Bishop, Viktor, Elenor, Rooster, Johnny Cash, Nathan, Baron, Little T , Bruno, Isabella, CC, Lila and the soon-to-be-born Kaminski baby. (I know some of you are big kids, but if you can’t get tattoos yet you’re a baby to me.)