A couple of things before we leave cupcakes… First of all, although I like this new cupcake fad and all the beautiful cupcakes, there tends to be a lot of frosting. In many cases, the cupcake artists build elaborate sculptures atop each cupcake, using mostly frosting, and sometimes that’s too much frosting. I don’t want to eat a cup of frosting unless it’s covering about eight cupcakes.
At Rosscott, Inc. someone has come up with a system for making a cupcake into a mini sandwich. I’ve never had too much of a problem eating cupcakes myself, but if it has been a source of frustration for you, this tip may be a godsend. 
Finally, my favorite new cupcake design is the Cookie Monster cupcake, because you get a cupcake and a cookie.
To make these, you need:
- Cupcakes – any recipe
- Buttercream icing in blue and white
- Dessicated coconut tinted in blue
- cookies -any recipe (Cookie Monster not picky)
- Chocolate chips
Decorating Method
1. Cover cupcakes in blue icing.
2. Sprinkle dessicated coconuts over the cupcakes.
3. Pipe out two balls of white icing.
4. Using chocloate chips with flat surface up, put each chip on each ball for the eyes.
5. Make a cut for the mouth, and wedge a cookie inside.
For the dessicated coconut, mix a few drops of food color into a tablespoon or so liqueur, toss with the coconut to thoroughly coat, then spread the coconut out on wax paper to air dry for a couple hours. To make the coconut better resemble the flocking material that Cookie Monster is made from, pulse the coconut in a food processor until it is the right texture. You can add the coloring at this time, too.
It might also be helpful to make the eyes ahead of time. You can pipe the eye shapes on a piece of wax paper (use a baggie with the corner snipped off if you don’t have a pastry bag), then place the chocolate chips and allow to air dry for a couple hours. Then you can glue them on if necessary with some extra icing. Wipe away a bit of the coconut so you can get better adhesion.
- Derrick Snyder