He has been obsessed with Minions for awhile now. We even went to see Despicable Me 2 as his very first movie in the theater (he did awesome). So naturally, I decided to do his party with a Minion theme. I made Minion invitations, picked up some inexpensive Minion Mylar and latex balloons on Amazon, and a couple little party favors. All that was left was the cake. I have a fondness for cupcakes (easy to make, fun to decorate, and easy to send leftovers home with party guests). Here's what I came up with!
You'll need:
- 1 box cake mix (I used Betty Crocker™ Butter Recipe Yellow) and ingredients necessary to prepare it
- 1 package blue cupcake liners (or color of choice)
- 1 can white frosting (I used Betty Crocker™ Whipped Cream Frosting)
- Yellow food coloring
- 1 package regular Oreo™ cookies
- 1 package Oreos with chocolate creme centers (like Chocolate Oreos or Golden Oreos)
- 1 package bite-size Mini Oreos (for two-eyed Minions)
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 Wilton™ Sugar Sheets! in black (or similar edible "paper")
- Prepare cake mix as directed. Fill paper baking cups just under 2/3 of the way full (you don't want to overfill or the tops of the cupcakes will be too rounded). You may end up with a little extra batter left over when all 24 cupcakes are completed.
- Mix yellow food coloring into white frosting a few drops at a time until desired color is reached. Set aside.
- Carefully begin separating the regular Oreo cookies and Mini Oreos into halves. Do not twist; lift them apart. (If it's hot or humid while you're working, you may want to stick them in the fridge for a few minutes - just long enough for the creme to solidify a little bit, not enough for it to go completely hard.) You want all the creme on one half of the cookie. (I saved the "blank" halves in a sandwich baggie for later - you could eat them as-is, use them crushed up in a pie crust or ice cream cake, etc.)
The Mini Oreos gave me some trouble because the creme is already firmer than in regular Oreos. Just do your best to get them separated, and if necessary, use creme from some regular Oreos to fill in any gaps that may occur where the creme breaks apart on the Minis. The cookie halves with creme are the base of the Minions' goggles.
If there are residual cookie crumbs on the white creme of the cookies, you can place them into the fridge for a few minutes, then use a sharp knife to carefully scrape the residue off the surface of the creme. I didn't bother since I was in a bit of a rush, but others may want theirs to be more precise. - When you have all your goggle bases ready, separate a chocolate-creme Oreo. Using a small knife or your fingers, take a pea-sized amount and roll it into a ball in your fingers. Press it onto one of the goggles and pat it down until it's a round shape; this is the iris of the eye. (Again, if you're having trouble with the creme sticking or being generally difficult to work with, pop it in the fridge for a minute or two and try again. You want the creme to be firm enough not to start melting to your fingers, but not so hard that you can't get the cookies apart.) Add one chocolate chip, pointy-side down, into the center of the brown for the pupil. For two-eyed Minions, use a smaller amount of chocolate creme.
You should have something that looks like this:
- Once your cupcakes are cool, begin frosting them. Tip: If any of them are extremely rounded/puffy, trim them down to a flatter shape with a butter knife. It will make decorating them much easier. Plus, bonus - you can snack on the cupcake tops while you decorate!
- Cut your Sugar Sheet into strips the same width as your cupcakes. (I cut mine width-wise instead of long-ways, so I'd have shorter pieces of "paper" to deal with.) Trim these into strips about 1/2" or so wide. The strips should be wide enough to go just about edge-to-edge on your cupcakes. Remove from plastic backing and place gently on the cupcake. These will be the goggle straps. Tip: DO NOT pre-cut your Sugar Sheet, especially if it's warm or humid out. I tried this with the first batch, and once the sheet is exposed to air it starts getting harder to work with, even in an air-conditioned kitchen. I ruined most of a Sugar Sheet trying to pre-cut my pieces ahead of time so I could assembly-line my cupcakes when they were cool, and ended up not being able to get the strips off the plastic backing without tearing them to bits. Thankfully I had purchased a back-up Sugar Sheet. I cut two or three goggle straps at a time, removed them from their plastic, and set them on the cupcake before I cut more.
- Once the straps are in place, using a small knife, apply a smear of frosting to the back of a cookie and place it on the goggle-strap, pressing down to adhere it to the cupcake. Repeat until you have an army of Minion cupcakes staring up at you!
- ENJOY!
I really enjoyed this project, though the two-eyed Minions were enough to make me practically batty. I ended up doing fewer of them than I had originally planned just because the cookies were so aggravating to get apart. I had a bit of a learning curve with the Sugar Sheet, as it was the first time I'd used one, but it was infinitely easier than my original plan of using a stripe of dark-colored frosting on the cupcakes. I was worried it was going to be a weird texture when eaten, given how firm the Sugar Sheet felt when using it, but it wasn't too bad; both the Sugar Sheet and the Oreo cookies themselves actually softened up from the moisture in the frosting.
By the time the cupcakes were eaten a few hours after I'd decorated them, the cookies were actually softened up enough that you couldn't remove them from the top of the cupcake in one piece easily. They still tasted great, and everyone loved the cupcakes, especially the birthday boy (and his little brother)!
Ah, the sweet taste of success!
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