Halloween Cupcakes and Nails

Disney was holding a "Haunt Your Disney Side" contest this October to win a midnight party at the Haunted Mansion in Disney World, and a one-night stay in Cinderella Castle!  The categories for entry were costumes, decorations, desserts and pumpkin carvings.  My entry didn't win, but I had fun making it!  I chose Mickey and Minnie Halloween Cupcakes, and this is how it went!

I started with some cute Halloween cupcake wrappers from Michaels:

Of course they weren't the foil kind so the oil bled through and the designs weren't very clear anymore. At least they were fun for me to look at while I baked!

I bought all the candy for decorating at Fuzziwig's--Jellybeans, sour candy tape, mini M&Ms, candy bones, and much more that I tried for ears, noses and eyes… but the candy I listed is all I ended up using!  Oh, and this TINY CONE with marshmallow that was just TOO CUTE not to buy… and I used it as a witch hat, as you'll see below :)  (Do you like my Frankenstein nails?  I have more Disney-ish nails at the end of this post!)

Now, if this were my cupcake blog, I'd go through many more steps with pictures, but it's more about the finished product here on my Disney blog, so here's Mickey (pre-vampire):

Oreo ears, mini M&Ms glued with frosting to vanilla jellybeans, a black licorice jellybean for his nose, sour candy tape cut into a tongue shape, and frosting.  There is no frosting around his face because the chocolate cupcake itself was the perfect color!

And here's Minnie, much the same except for her chocolate-sprinkles eyelashes (and pre-witch)!

Here is a side-view of Minnie (with her witch hat on) just to show you how funny it looked when it wasn't at just the right angle!

It was meticulous work making their faces--I used an offset spatula and vanilla frosting dyed to just the right color (some yellow, a teensy bit of red), and spread it on in the face shape.  As you can see, each "mouse" was actually 3 cupcakes.  So I didn't make more than the two I needed for my photo submission!  I made some fun Halloween-y "background" cupcakes with what frosting and sprinkles I had left:

So here it is, my submission for the "Haunt Your Disney Side" contest!  Like I said, I didn't win, but it was fun making this, and now I can put it in my scrapbook :)  Mickey has 2 little white-frosting fangs, a candy bone as his vampire bow tie, and sour candy tape as his vampire-cape collar!  Minnie has a frosted and sprinkled cone as her witch hat, with sour candy tape as the ribbon! 

And, as I promised, here is a picture of the nails I did for Halloween: poison apple nails!  All using nail polish and a dotting tool!  Hope you had a happily haunting Halloween!

Hollywood Studios' 25th Anniversary Cupcake From Scratch

A couple months ago (May 1), Disney's Hollywood Studios celebrated their 25th anniversary.  If you were there, you may have bought this delicious, chocolate-hazelnut cupcake.  If not, you are in luck!  Disney's official blog site has shared it with us, and (a couple months late) I tried it out.  You can read all about it on my cupcake blog!  Here's how ours came out:

Mrs. Potts Cookies!

For those of you who don't know, I actually have 2 blogs on blogspot!  This one and a cupcake one.  Sometimes they collide.  For instance, I made Brave, Wreck it Ralph and Muppet cupcakes.  You can see them all on my cupcake blog, Easy There, Cupcake!  My most recent post was Mrs. Potts cookies (one of very few deviations from cupcakes)!

I used a couple souvenirs to make them: Mickey measuring cups from Disney (from my parents):

and teapot cookie cutters from London (from my friend Katherine):

So… I kind of HAD to make these!

To read and see more, click here!  

Remember a couple months ago (May 1) when Hollywood Studios was celebrating its 25th anniversary?  The Disney Parks Blog posted the recipe for this exclusive cupcake that would only be sold that one day in that one park!  That is my next venture.  Stay tuned!!

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Cookies!

I found them!!  I went to Target today and they were right where I saw them.  Good old, reliable Target!  Isn't this box adorable?  The back is cute, too:

It's a little (obvious) matching game.  Anyway, if you can see the small writing in yellow, it says "Just Place & Bake!" and yes, it is that simple!  (You can also see the three other cookie "shapes" on the bottom right: Valentine Mickeys over hearts, the Cinderella shoe I think I mentioned in my last post, and Cars!)

I took them out of the pack:

They actually look like little Stitch faces!  They were so cute and tiny, I felt like I was about to eat Pumpkin Mickey cereal (there's an idea...).  Anyway I took a picture holding it so you could see how small they were:

Haha okay maybe they're not cereal-sized.  Although Honeycombs are rather large, aren't they?

Aww there they are!  I actually had to move some of these to a separate pan because I re-read the box after sliding these puppies into the oven (note to literal readers: I did not slide any puppies into the oven) and realized they should be not one, but two inches apart from each other.  Now, I don't have a built-in ruler app in my brain and I'm too lazy to actually get a ruler out of the drawer right next to me, so I spread them out a little further just to make sure.

This is how they looked coming out of the oven, which is exactly the same except a tiny bit bigger (and I didn't take a picture holding one cuz they were too hot and I could take one right now, but remember that comment I just made about being lazy and the ruler?  Yeah.)

And here they are all festively displayed on a green plate..

Yum!  I'm sure the treats at MNSSHP will be much fancier and tastier, but these are pretty fancy and tasty if I do say so myself!!  Thanks, Pillsbury!