Kim Tries: Disney Cupcakes

I spend far too much of my time down the rabbit hole of DIY (do it yourself) on Pinterest and Instagram. I’m constantly seeing adorable projects or perfect desserts and thinking “I can totally do that!” only to later discover, “Oh, oh no I cannot.” This crushing defeat doesn’t keep me down for long. It’s a good thing, too, because every once in a while, I find a project that is actually doable and its successful completion is so satisfying. A couple of years ago, I found some entirely doable Disney cupcakes that I want to share with you!

Setting the Stage

I stumbled on both of these designs a few years ago when they popped up on my Facebook newsfeed as videos from the Disney Family page. I thought they were completely charming and I had to give them a go.

I’m no baker and I’ve never taken any kind of class on cake or cupcake decorating. I’m 100% amateur here. My first time trying out each of these designs was back in 2015, and even though I was broke and didn’t use the right equipment or decorating tools, they still came out pretty darn cute!

This time, I gave it another go, following the rules to see if my kitchen creation would be presentable or worthy of a “Close Enough” meme. I was thrilled with the outcome and wanted to share these designs as doable for any Disney party (or just cause, if you’re like me and don’t need a reason for Disney cupcakes). For other great Disney party ideas, check out Andy’s 5th Birthday!

Disney Cupcakes: Minnie Mouse

You can find the Disney Family post for these Disney cupcakes here: Disney Family Minnie Mouse Cupcakes. This design requires a lot less work and a lot fewer ingredients than the Sorcerer Mickey Disney cupcakes I discuss below.

There’s an instruction video and written instructions at the above link, so I won’t go into detail, but the steps are basically as follows:

1. Bake cupcakes and let FULLY cool
2. Mix red food dye into white frosting to make bright pink frosting; frost each cupcake
3. Liberally sprinkle whole cupcake top with pink sugar sprinkles
4. Separate halves of mini Oreo cookies and place each cookie on the side at the “back” third of each cupcake for ears
5. Cut about 4-5” length of bubblegum tape and fold edges back to meet in center to make bow loops. Pinch in the center to shape bow.
6. Cut about 1” length of bubblegum tape and cut length-wise. Wrap small piece of bubblegum tape around the center of the bow and place the bow in front of the ears.
7. Place sugar pearls in front of bow in offset rows.

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Minnie Cupcakes – Ingredients

For these Disney cupcakes, you will need the following items (I included Amazon.com links for those harder-to-find ingredients. I got everything else from a regular grocery store):

• Cupcakes (I used boxed mix because, again, I’m not a baker) and any ingredients required for your preferred cupcakes
• Cupcake pan and paper cups (I used these darling pink and white polka-dot ones)
• White frosting
• Red food dye
• Pink sugar sprinkles
• Sugar pearls
• Bubblegum Tape
• Mini Oreos
• Scissors and Tweezers

Minnie Cupcakes – Tips

• I chose to use vanilla cakes for these cupcakes because I felt like the lighter cake helped the light pink frosting be brighter. With enough frosting, though, you shouldn’t be able to see any cake through, so you can likely pick whatever flavor is your favorite.
• The instructions say to seek out pink food dye for the frosting. I had an impossible time finding this. I thought I’d found some powdered dye on Amazon, but the “Berry” color was much more purple than pink. I had a lot more success using just a couple (and I really mean just a COUPLE) of drops of red in the tub of white frosting and I got a great pink color.
• Use more batter than you think you need. When you’re decorating a Disney cupcake, you want to make sure your cupcake puffs up over the top of the paper wrapper, and is nice and round so you have a lot of surface area to work with. I filled each paper cup at least 3/4 with batter to make sure my cupcakes had nice domes on top. This meant I could only make about 20 cupcakes with one box, so keep that in mind if you’re planning for a certain headcount.

• I had some fun playing with frosting piping to try to make cool swirls with the frosting. With how many sprinkles go on top, though, it honestly didn’t make much of a difference.
• Place the pearls one at a time using tweezers. I tried just sprinkling them on and they made a mess. They rolled all over the place and clumped up in a very unattractive design. Placing each one was tedious but went a lot faster than you’d think and I think the final look makes it worth it.

• A roll of bubblegum tape doesn’t go as far as you might think. I’d estimate you can make between 8 and 10 bows per roll, so make sure you get enough.
• DO NOT store your cupcakes with their bows or cookie ears. The Oreos become mush and the bubblegum flavor of the gum will soak into your entire cupcake (in an overwhelming way that is entirely unappealing). If you’re making your cupcakes a day before your party, don’t decorate them until morning-of. TRUST ME.

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Disney Cupcakes: Sorcerer Mickey

You can find the Disney Family post for these Disney Cupcakes here: Disney Family Sorcerer Mickey Cupcakes.

Full instructions are again available via video and text at the above link, but the rundown is as follows:

1. Bake cupcakes and let FULLY cool
2. Add a lot of red food dye to white frosting until it’s a rich red color. Frost each cupcake
3. Melt blue candy melts and coat each sugar cone. Let dry
4. Roll out fondant until it’s about 1/4” thick and cut out stars and moons; stick to each blue cone
5. Place Sorcerer’s Hat on the back part of each cupcake
6. Cut mini donuts in half and use toothpicks to affix to cupcakes beside hat as mouse ears
7. Sprinkle silver sugar sprinkles in front of hat and ears

Sorcerer Mickey Cupcakes – Ingredients

Here is what you need for these cupcakes (same as above – I included Amazon links for the harder-to-find ingredients. Everything else was in a regular grocery store):

• Cupcakes (I used boxed mix again – chocolate fudge!)
• Cupcake pan and paper cups (I used the blue ones from this set, but with the chocolate cakes, they actually came out pretty dark after baking. The first time I made these, I used silver cups, which were a lot of fun, but make sure you don’t microwave those. Silver cups are metallic)
• Sugar ice cream cones
• Blue candy melts
• Mini chocolate donuts
• White frosting
• Red food dye
• Silver sugar sprinkles
• White fondant
• Tiny star fondant plunger cutters (the exact ones I used aren’t available anymore, but these look identical)

• Something to cut round shapes in fondant (I used the ear part of a Mickey Mouse cookie cutter I had)
• Toothpicks

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Sorcerer Mickey Cupcakes – Tips

• Even more so than with Minnie – overfill your cupcakes with batter. The sugar cone and mini donut halves are bigger than you’d expect so you need as much space as you can get for each cupcake.
• If your candy melts get hard, just microwave them for another 30 seconds. They’ll melt right back to where they were
• I used a small amount of flour on the counter and rolling pin before rolling my fondant. It made it a lot easier to work with (I already knew I wouldn’t be eating the fondant, so taste didn’t matter to me)
• Use a toothpick to spread a tiny bit of wet candy melt on the hat cones where you want to stick your stars and moon. The fondant didn’t stick to the dry hats at all

• The hats are heavier than you’d expect on top of the cupcakes. If they start tipping back, use toothpicks to help stabilize the hats where you want them
• The hats take longer to craft than you might think. Leave yourself extra time if you’re party planning.
• The video shows the baker using a spoon to cover the cones in the blue candy melts; I found a silicone spatula to work much better.

• You need a lot of red food dye to get the frosting to a bright red color. If you’re running out, get an extra one. While my Sorcerer Mickey cupcakes definitely look “red” when next to my definitively pink Minnie Mouse cupcakes, I still wish the color was richer.

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A lot of online DIY projects seem completely impossible. I was thrilled to find these absolutely adorable designs that even I could do. If you have other Disney DIY’s that you’d like me to try out for you, just let me know! I’m always looking for a new project.

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