Cooper just turned two, so it stands to reason that he’s obsessed with Elmo. Elmo, after all, is the Muppet equivalent of Cheerios, AKA “baby crack.” There’s something primal about babies’ love for both of these things that I simply do not understand (although I do think that Elmo’s World is a perfect example of absurdist humor, but that’s a different post for a different time). So when it was time to figure out Cooper’s birthday cake, Elmo immediately came to mind.
This was going to be for the big party; the one to which we invited all of the kids from his daycare, so naturally I wanted to do something special. I decorated my first cake for his birthday last year, and was quite happy with the way it turned out. However, I’m certainly not an artist, so I needed to find something that was basically “cake decorating for dummies.”
I searched online and came across this design for Elmo cupcakes on amazingmoms.com. Amazing mom? That’s what I want to be! It seemed pretty simple: red frosting, white Necco wafers, black icing, and orange gumdrops. They say to use a licorice strand for the mouth, but I decided to just use the black decorator icing that I was already using for the eyes. Plus, I couldn’t find orange gumdrops that weren’t gigantic, so I used orange jelly beans instead. The recipe does mention using gel food coloring in order to get a true red, so I made sure to get some.
Unfortunately, that’s where the train went off the track. My friend Elizabeth came over to help me out, as she knows that I tend to melt down when faced with artistic baking endeavors. In addition to some wine (a key ingredient when trying anything new), she brought over some decorating bags, tips, and some Wilton food coloring gel. Here’s the thing though: that business did not turn red. Instead, the icing turned a crazy Barbie hot pink. We added more and it just became darker pink. We added blue, and it just turned a lovely shade of mauve. WE CAN’T HAVE MAUVE ELMOS!
After spending close to an hour playing food-coloring alchemists, I made a last minute late-night run to the grocery store. I returned with red decorating icing– the kind that comes in a can and has a few different decorating tips. It looked kind of gross, but it was 11:00 and I was desperate. The plus side: It was red. Unfortunately, I was only able to get 11 cupcakes out of it.
The end result, at nearly 1 AM and after several glasses of wine between the two of us, was 11 red Elmos, 1 sad mauve Elmo, and two dozen lame mauve cupcakes. Some would call this a failure, but the next morning, when Cooper was sitting on my lap as I loaded the photos onto my computer, he saw the pictures and squealed, “Elmo!” And that, my friends, is a big win.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Oct 20, 2010 @ 11:33 EST5EDT
They look really cute! Kudos to you for not giving up too easily. Don’t feel bad – he probably won’t remember it anyway. (Although I do still remember my Cookie Monster cake from my 3rd birthday.) I had my own baking disaster over the weekend. Was trying a recipe for a deep, dark chocolate cake, and I put too much baking powder by accident (tablespoon instead of teaspoon). And the pans were too full. In any case, both pans overflowed in the oven. And then the frosting… but that’s another story. The day after all this happened, I was eating a slice of the chocolate disaster, and it tasted so good that I was able to put the horrors of the previous day out of my mind.
They do look adorable. Great job. And, if nothing else, you will have a fun story to tell Cooper when he gets older!
I think that’s wonderful! My mum handmade all my cakes and while not all of them ended up perfectly, I always appreciate the effort so much than a store bought cake. And these look amazing, I think I’ll have a go at making them!