Decorating Ideas (and Recipes) for Mickey and Minnie Cupcakes and Cake

My family loves Disney and I love to bake, so I’ve made a number of Mickey/Minnie themed baked goods over the years. In honor of my mom’s birthday in a few days, I thought I’d share some of my tips for decorating Mickey and Minnie cupcakes and cake! In this post, you’ll find a variety of suggestions on how to decorate Mickey or Minnie cupcakes, a recipe for Oreo cookies and cream cupcakes, my favorite way to “doctor” a boxed cake mix to make it taste homemade, and steps to create giant chocolate Mickey (or Minnie) ears to use as cake toppers!

Cookies n’ Cream Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup cake flour (If you don’t want to buy cake flour, you can use all-purpose flour only. It just won’t be as fluffy.)
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 10 Oreo cookies, chopped

Cupcake Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add eggs, one at a time.
4. Add vanilla and baking powder to mixture.
5. In a small bowl, combine flours.
6. Measure out the milk and alternately add the flour and the milk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
7. Stir in chopped Oreos.
   
   Fill lined cupcake tins with batter. You should have 24 cupcakes.
8. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
9. Allow to cool 10 minutes in pan before transferring to a cooling rack.

Frosting:

• 1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Cream the butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the powdered sugar, about 1/2
   cup at a time, until thoroughly mixed.
3. Add the vanilla and mix well.

(If you prefer a cookies n’ cream cupcake without the Mickey look, you can also mix your cookie crumbs into the frosting at this time. Decorate cupcakes as desired.)

Mickey decorating:

• 8 Oreo cookies, finely crushed
• 48 chocolate melting wafers (dark chocolate used here), or mini Oreos

1. Using a knife, spread a layer of frosting over each cupcake (about ¼” thick).
2. Place Oreo crumbs in a small bowl. Turn the cupcake upside down and gently roll in the Oreo crumbs, evenly covering the frosting with a thin layer of crumbs.
3. Place two chocolate wafers in the frosting to look like Mickey ears.

Presentation note: Red liners or red with white white polka dots really help complete the look! HERE‘s* a link to red/white polka dot liners. And if you’re doing a Minnie/Mickey party, you might like THIS set with a mixture of polka dots in red, pink, purple etc.

Alternative Mickey decorating:

For my son’s 1st birthday, I topped each cupcake with piped buttercream. Then I placed one standard Oreo and two mini Oreos on the top to make a Mickey head.

For Minnie Mouse:

To make Minnie cupcakes with edible colored bows, you can use a mold like this one I purchased from Amazon linked HERE*. Buy a package of melting disks from a store like Michael’s to create colored bows to match your theme. Then place them in the icing in between your Oreo/chocolate ears!

When I made these Minnie cupcakes for my daughter’s “Oh Two-dles” Birthday Party, I actually skipped a few steps. Instead of using the above from-scratch recipe, I utilized my favorite way to “doctor” a cake mix!

“Doctor” a Cake Mix to Make It Even Better

Sometimes, you want to keep it simple and go with a cake mix. Cake mixes typically contain a bag of dry ingredients and then have you add water, oil and eggs. But if you want to give that cake mix a little something “extra,” use these substitutions. It gives your cake a richer flavor and makes it taste more homemade.

1. Start with your cake mix of choice. This will work with any flavor, but my first choice is usually Duncan Hines French Vanilla.
2. Replace the water with milk.
3. Replace the oil with melted butter.
4. Add in an extra egg to whatever the box says.
5. I love to add mini chocolate chips, too!

And here’s one more decorating idea for a Mickey Mouse birthday Cake …

For Henry’s 1st Birthday, we did a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. For his smash cake, I made a giant cupcake topped with chocolate Mickey ears.

I used THIS* giant cupcake mold.

Melt about 1/4 bag of red melting wafers.

Use a rubber spatula to “paint” a thin coat of melting chocolate all over the inside of the bottom of the cupcake mold, making sure to get it into all of the grooves.

Put the mold into the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Melt the rest of the chocolate and add another coating to the inside of the cupcake mold. Reserve about 1/4 cup of melted chocolate in case you need to do any “touch ups” after removing from the mold.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or freeze for 30 minutes.

Once it is completely hard, use both hands to put gentle pressure against the inside of the mold and slide it out. If it doesn’t come out easier, you might need to put it back in the freezer for a bit.

Once you have it out, clean the cake mold and bake your cake. When your cake has cooled, trim the edges just a bit so you can place the baked cake inside the candy cupcake wrapper.

To create the Mickey ears, you’ll need:

• Parchment paper
• Piece of paper with circles traced on it.
• Melting chocolate. (Dark chocolate used here to look more like Mickey.)
• Ziplock bag OR a melting chocolate squeeze bottle
• 2 cake pop sticks*

Place your paper with the circles drawn on it on top of a cutting board or baking sheet. Then place a piece of wax paper over the paper. (You should be able to see the circles through the parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate. Either spoon it into a Ziplock bag and cut off a corner to pipe, or use a melting chocolate squeeze bottle as linked above.

Using the melted chocolate, trace the shape of the circles and then fill in the center, creating chocolate circles.

While the chocolate is still melted, place one popsicle stick in the center of each circle. You want about half of the stick to come out the bottom of the circle. The exposed stick will be going into the top of your cake.

Place the cutting board or baking sheet in the refrigerator until the chocolate has hardened. Then gently remove from parchment paper. You’ll now have two chocolate Mickey ears to put into the top of your cake!

NOTE: I loved the idea of a giant cupcake for both of my kids’ smash cakes for their first birthday since everyone else would have regular cupcakes. But these chocolate Mickey ears would also be really cute in a standard or layered round cake instead of the cupcake.

I hope these recipes and decorating suggestions have given you some ideas if you’re celebrating a Mickey or Minnie fan in your life!