Minnie Mouse Cupcakes (And Perhaps a Fire…)

My sweet foster baby turned one this week!

So, in honor of her big day I made some Minnie Mouse Cupcakes and almost set the pizza joint on fire.

I kid you not.

We invited Hazel’s caseworker, parents and grandma to join our family for pizza to celebrate this momentous occasion. I, for one, can’t begin to imagine missing my baby’s first birthday. My mother’s heart couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try to arrange for her family to be able to see her on her special day. Luckily, it worked out for us to be able to enjoy some pizza and cupcakes together.

Oh, and presents of course!

When it came time for cake, I went to light the candle with one of those torch flicker type lighters with the long stick on the end. My nine year-old daughter, Leeann just about panicked, not wanting Hazel to get burned. She made it very clear that she thought it was absolutely careless to let a one year old blow out a candle.

I assured her several times that Hazel would be just fine and urged her to stop freaking out. You could see the anxiety on her face and her body tense as she flinched away from the lighter.

I was literally assuring her of Hazel’s safety when I began lighting the candle. Before the candle even had a chance to light, however, the flame extended past the candle and started Minnie’s bow on fire.

Yes. I caught the cupcake on fire as I was reassuring my nine year old that everything was just fine.

Someone’s got to be responsible. Clearly it isn’t me!

(Though, please take note of the fact that I did point the candle away from the flammable bow. I just didn’t take into account the size of the flame that would come out of the lighter!)

I instinctively flicked the cupcake off the top tier of the cupcake stand (as if that was supposed to help?) and blew out the flame before it set anything else on fire.

Yep. I’m that awesome!

At least everyone there got a good laugh at my expense…

And just in case you’re dying to know how I accomplished the Minnie Mouse Cupcake look, here’s my attempt at a tutorial:

First, I made some milk chocolate cupcakes from a box. Creative, I know!

Then I made some homemade buttercream frosting using this recipe.

I baked the cupcakes in these cute red cupcake liners with white polka dots that I got at a Jo-Ann’s. The cupcakes were chocolate so unfortunately the white polka dots weren’t so white anymore after they baked.

Because of this I decided to add an extra liner over the already baked cupcakes. To do it again I simply would have made white cupcakes instead. 

I added various red and white sprinkles on top of the cupcakes. These particular sprinkles were ordered from Bake It Pretty.

Cupcake Toppers:

I made these cupcake toppers by creating a Minnie Mouse head in MIcrosoft Publisher. I simply put three black circles together until it resembled a Minnie head the size I wanted it. The small ones are roughly 2.5 inches tall and 3.5 wide. The cupcake topper on the top of the stand that says “I’m 1!” is roughly 3.5 inches tall and 4.5 inches wide. Then I added the text using a Walt Disney font that I had downloaded from dafont.com. I printed the images out on cardstock.

Then I painstakingly cut out each shape and then darkened the edges with a sharpie. Someone who has a better design software or fancy cutting machine might have to be so elementary!

Next I grabbed some of the leftover cupcake liners and cut them each in half. For the large topper I cut a strip out of the middle starting at the top of the circle, cutting toward the flat side of the liner. I stopped just a half inch or so before I reached the bottom. Then I took that strip and folded it backward and back around the liner creating the center part of the bow. I taped it on the back to hold it in place.

Next I cut two heart shapes, one on each side and attached the bow to the cupcake topper with tape as well. Finally, I attached a 4 inch lollipop stick to the topper with tape and poked it down into the cupcake.

For the smaller bows I simply cut about a half-inch off of the outside of the cupcake liner before following the instructions above. Because of their shape they naturally bend backward unless you purposefully bend them forward, which makes the bow stand out a bit.

And there you have it… Minnie Mouse Cupcakes!