A Food Meme Study – Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Working Theory

Not wise to the ways of frosting or cake/pastry decoration of any sort, the main thing that stood out to me was that the frosting seems to have been placed on a hot or warm cupcake such that the frosting broke down to a puddled mess. So, all I need to do is let the cupcakes cool before I frost them and I'm solid...right!? Let's put it to the test!

Process Flow

We'll go through the following steps/substeps to make these meme cupcakes:

1. We'll make the "eyes" for the cupcakes
2. We'll make the cupcakes, using a recipe found on The Spruce Eats
3. We'll make a buttercream frosting, using general frosting principles found across the internet
4. We'll assemble the cupcakes!

Note: In addition to some informational text, the image sliders below will provide a visualization of how the cupcakes were made and assembled. Hopefully, the combination of the two mediums will provide enough insight should you want to try this out yourself. All that said, let's get started!

Notes:

• The example above uses a store-bought edible adhesive mostly for the sake of simplicity. Alternatively, a mixture of corn syrup and water would also serve a similar purpose.
• The "pupils" of the eyes are based on the size of the chocolate chips used, especially compared against the base of the candy discs. Feel free to use whatever size of chocolate chip that serves your purpose!
• Additionally, many options are available for "eyebrows" beyond broken-up candy bar chunks. Licorice, taffy, or any other strip-like candy or pastry...even fondant should you want to go down that route, can be used to create an eyebrow effect.

Notes:

• Ideally, the butter will have sat at room temperature for at least 3-6 hours to help with mixing the sugar. You may notice an immersion blender in the 3rd slide...yeah that could be controversial in some baking circles...but since a basic hand mixer was slow in mixing the ingredients I decided to amp up the approach. In this case it may have been beneficial as a fast moving blade usually has a tendency of adding micro-bubbles to a mixture (which leads to the controversy of convenience vs. a more methodical approach), and the mixture helped mix as the eggs were added.
• Adding the eggs one at a time was definitely helpful. Not to distract from the recipe and meme-execution itself, but in going through this process I was reminded of an experience from my childhood days; in middle school back in my time, we had a Home Economics course, and in one of the classes everyone was split into groups to bake a cake. Though the teacher was a bit of a clown with a reputation of questionable teaching, a group of students complained that there were chunks of egg in the cake they made, without much reaction from the teacher. Not only that, but they later complained to one of the school counselors about how their cake had chunks of egg in it! Millennials, I'm tellin' you...🙄
• Distractions aside, a somewhat important detail the slides missed was putting the cake batter into a cupcake/muffin pan. I used simple paper cupcake liners, without shortening or non-stick spray, filled slightly over half-full with batter. The resulting cupcakes are displayed on the last slide, slightly golden in color with some variation based on the position in the oven.

Notes

• As vegan alternatives to butter are becoming increasingly accessible in even mainstream grocery and big-box stores, it is definitely worth it to at least try a substitution in something that calls for butter. I partially favor Miyoko's over Earth Balance, not necessarily as it's a better product over the other, but they have quite a lot going on organizationally...within the past few years they got a favorable ruling against the California Department of Food & Agriculture over whether or not they can use terms like "dairy" or "butter" as a basis of their product descriptions. Additionally, the company filed a lawsuit earlier in 2023 against their namesake founder over theft of proprietary information. At time of writing, the suit is pending. Long story short, drama-free alternative -> probably Earth Balance...Tea-infused, figuratively speaking -> Miyoko's
• In mixing the sugar and vegan butter together, I found it effective to mix the sugar in small batches, roughly sifting before running the mixer.
• While the coconut cream was probably not a necessary step, it did seem to add a bit of flavor, and it gave the frosting a bit more of a whipped texture after mixing.
• To make a green frosting, I added about 5 drops of blue food dye to about 19-20 drops of green frosting, with about half of the frosting mixture.
• The blue frosting in the slide above used about 10-12 drops.

Notes/Conclusion

Overall, while it's no Pinterest inspiration, I can at least say that I did not end up with a frosted puddle. The most surprising lesson learned is that after the frosting was placed in a piping bag and ready for topping, I noticed that the frosting was becoming more puddly as I progressed. It might be a fair conclusion that the temperature change from simply holding the piping bag could vary the results. Oddly enough, the frosting held its shape at room temperature once it was on the cupcake. As I do this type of stuff I'll definitely keep note, and any first-timer should be mindful of this as well.

In terms of the treats over the top of the cupcakes, I simply ended up using store-bought, prepackaged cookies and peanut butter cups. Should you try and re-create this type of cupcake, you should definitely use what matches your tastes, brand preferences, and imagination!