Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 140°C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.

Add the softened butter and both sugars to a large mixing bowl. Use a hand mixer to beat until light in colour. About 3 minutes.

Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well combined.

Switch to a spatula and mix in half the flour, bicarb soda and salt until well combined. Repeat with the rest of the flour.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Use a small ice cream scoop or heaping tablespoon to add little mounds of cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Space the dough mounds 5cm / 2 inches apart.

Bake the cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until the bottoms and edges are lightly browned and the tops feel firm when lightly touched, 10-13 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 30-40 cookies. Set 20 cookies aside and roughly chop the rest.

You want to make the frosting the day before you use it because this particular frosting recipe darkens the next day when it’s coloured. Not sure why, but it does.

Add the blue food gel to the frosting and mix until well combined.

Fit the end of a piping bag with a grass tip. Fill it with blue frosting and pipe hair on the cookies. Add some candy eyes on top. Make cookie monster look cross eyed.

Preheat a fan-forced oven to 140C (280F) or 180C (320F)  for a conventional oven. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to a large mixing bowl and mix together using a hand mixer to combine.

Next add the softened butter and mix on low speed until mixture reaches a crumbly sand like texture.

Add the eggs, milk, oil, Greek yogurt (which helps keep the cake moist) and vanilla. Mix on low speed until no dry ingredients are showing. Scrape down the bowl, add the choc chips and fold through.

Fill each paper 3/4 of the way (using an ice cream scoop to transfer the batter into the cupcake liners makes this a quick and easy process otherwise you can use two tablespoons). Bake for 30 min. If they’re not baked after 30 min, bake for an extra 10 min at a time until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow them to cool completely on a wire cooling rack before frosting.

Core the centre of each cupcake and fill it with chocolate sauce.

Fit the end of a piping bag with a large round tip and frost a bulb of frosting on top. Dip it into some chopped cookies. Add the cookie monster cookie in the coated bulb of frosting to finish.