Everybody loves Cookie Monster

Mini-1 never had a best friend in nursery (kindergarten).  She was very happy and played well with whomever was in class that day.  Mini-2, on the other hand, bonded early and well with a lovely little girl I'm going to call S (that may or may not be because you can see the letter S on the chair she's sitting on).  At first, they couldn't function well without the other in class, but in their 4 year old year of nursery (as distinct from their 3 year old year) they learned to function separately.  I found this dependence upon one another very interesting, as did S's mother, and we learned early on to warn one another/manage the girls' expectations if one child was going to be absent one day.

When they moved up to school, they were not placed in the same class and are functioning very well indeed. They often sit together in the lunch hall, and I found out today that if Mini-2 doesn't share her after lunch treat with both S and Mini-1, S gets upset.  Too cute.  Lucky for us that Mini-2 is so kind and thoughtful, she shares it out evenly between all 3 where necessary.

S's 5th birthday party was last Saturday, but because we had been invited to play after school at her house on her actual birthday, we didn't take a gift to the party.  Rather we brought it with us today, along with these super-cute Cookie Monster cupcakes.

I had seen these cupcakes done by other bakers, and been lucky enough to receive a Wilton 233 grass tip/nozzle from my friend J in the USA.  I'm sure I could have bought one locally, I just hadn't.  I had a look on YouTube at a couple of different videos on how to do the technique, then just went for it.

I'm not best pleased with the eyes, and as we don't have mini M&M's here in the UK I couldn't easily think of anything to use for the eyeballs.  The black edible food marker didn't work too well on the white chocolate drop as it was slippery.  Our mini Smarties are too light a brown to be effective, and our chocolate chips are shaped like tiny Hershey's Kisses, so also wouldn't look right.  I'll just have to keep looking I guess...

Nevermind though, as the birthday girl was absolutely thrilled with them - her mouth actually dropped open when they were presented to her!  What a great result :)  She then turned blue from the icing, and thoroughly enjoyed her surprise treat.  Happy 5th Birthday sweetie!