Birthdays are usually a joyful occasion, but Mia’s 2nd birthday was a difficult time for the family… A little over a week before her birthday, Mia lost her grandfather, Dodo, to a massive heart attack after she had spent the morning playing football with him outdoors. Mia was lucky enough to have had him in her life for those two years and I believe he gave her enough love to last her a lifetime!
It was difficult for me to celebrate my daughter’s second birthday and make a big fuss of it all, as was the tradition in the family, while mourning my father’s devastating demise… This year happened to be a special one for Mia because it was her first year of nursery school; her birthday happened to be during the first week of school.
I decided to keep it simple and make her some cupcakes to share with her new classmates at school. I asked her what she wanted her cupcakes to have on them and she said, in a heartbeat: “Cookie Monstey!” So Cookie Monster it was!
I baked chocolate buttermilk cupcakes and used white buttercream frosting to crumb coat them, I then used Sapphire Pearlized Sugar to make the cookie monster’s fur. I then piped white mounds to elevate the eyes which I cut out of black and white fondant icing using a piping tip as a cutter. No cookie monster would be complete without a cookie so I used mini chocolate chip cookies for his mouth.
For the giveaways, I recycled cans of baker’s chocolate by covering them with cherry-print adhesive wrapping paper (since Mia was in the cherry class) and filling them with homemade play-dough Mia and I made together and I then tied 3 play dough cutters to each can with a ribbon.
