For cookie monster cupcakes, I recommend using chocolate cake mix. You can use your favorite brand of cake mix or your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe.

Mix together 3 eggs, ½ a cup of vegetable oil and one cup of water with one box of chocolate cake mix (or your dry ingredients) in a bowl. Fill your cupcake baking tin with cupcake liners and then spoon the cake mix in until each liner is about ¾ full.

Bake your cupcakes for 16-20 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit, depending on your cake mix instructions and oven. Take your cupcakes out of the cupcake pan and allow them to completely cool on a wire rack before you start decorating them. Cold cupcakes are much easier to decorate! Try popping your cupcakes in the fridge for 10 minutes before frosting them.

Make your vanilla buttercream frosting with 1 cup of butter and about 4.5 cups of icing sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla and 2 tsp of cream or whole milk. Blend it in a large bowl with a hand mixer or stand mixer until it’s fully mixed and no sugar crystals remain.

Add in 4 blue drops of food coloring and blend it again to make sure the color is well mixed. Scoop out a small amount (2-3 tablespoons) of your blue buttercream frosting into a separate bowl and add black food coloring that you'll use for the eye pupils later.

To make the eyes of your Cookie Monster cupcakes, use mini marshmallows and black icing. I put about 2 tablespoons of black icing in a piping bag with a small, round size 2 piping tip to draw on the frosting ‘pupils’. The eyes should look in different directions to give your Cookie Monster cupcake a ‘googly’ look.

Just before you frost your cupcakes, use a sharp knife to add a slit in the top of the cupcake for the cookie to rest in later!

Use piping tip #233, a grass tip, to give your Cookie Monster cupcakes a shaggy look. Fill your piping bag ½ full with blue icing. If your bag is too full it can be hard to get the right amount of pressure to use this piping tip correctly.

Start at the bottom of your cupcake, working your way around the whole thing to put layers of shaggy frosting on your Cookie Monster cake. Squeeze, gently press into the cupcake, continue squeezing, then pull away gently to create the fur. Stop squeezing and pull away from the cupcake. The longer you pull away from the cupcake, the longer the blue frosting fur will be. Take breaks if your hands get sore during this step. Work your way slowly towards the middle.

Once your cupcake is covered in bright blue frosting fur, add your chocolate chip cookie. You can see in my photos what it looks like when you use mini chips ahoy cookies vs when you cut a large chocolate chip cookie in half and use that instead.

Once your cookie is placed in the slit you cut on the top of your cupcake, use a bit more blue frosting to touch up the Cookie Monster's fur.

For the cookie monster's eyes, I used mini marshmallows and black frosting with a #2 small round piping tip.