Minnie Mouse Themed Birthday (DIY Minnie Mouse candy apples and cupcakes)

Last weekend we celebrated my daughter's second birthday with family and friends. She has really taken a liking to all things Disney especially Minnie Mouse, so it was only natural for her birthday we have a Minnie Mouse themed party complete with Minnie Mouse decorations and Minnie Mouse goodies.

I got the idea for these candy apples from Disneyland, they actually sell them and other Disney themed candy apples at Marcelines Confectionery, in Downtown Disney. They were so pretty I just knew I had to recreate them. When I started on them I had no idea what I was getting myself into, it took me 2 days and lots testing to get them JUST right.

Minnie Mouse Candy Apples

Ingredients:
20 apples (I used granny smith)
20 wooden sticks
1.5 bags of large marshmallows
Toothpicks
2 tubs of caramel
1 bag of white chocolate chips
4.5 bags of chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate but dark choclate would work too)
Milk
Pink sugar
Peppermint Patty Candys (white only)
Pink and white ribbon


1.) Wash apples and pat dry, then insert the wooden sticks into the apples and put aside.

2.) Now you want to heat the caramel, the easiest way to do it is to heat it up in the microwave. Put the caramel in a big bowl and add a little bit of milk and heat the caramel up for 30 second increments. (Each time make sure you stir the milk and caramel) until smooth and creamy. Once the caramel is smooth and creamy dip each apple into the caramel and cover as much of the apple as possible so it looks like this:

3.) Place apples on wax paper, add 2 toothpicks to each side of the apple for the ears and place a marshmallow over each tooth to make the ears, then place in the fridge to cool.

4.) While the apples are in the fridge cooling you can melt the chocolate. Pour all the chocolate chips into a large bowl and add a little bit of milk and place in the microwave and heat the same way as you did with the caramel. 30 seconds at time, taking it out each time to stir and then reheat until it's smooth and creamy. It took me about 5 minutes total to get the chocolate to the right temperature on a low powered microwave.

6.) Remove the apples from the fridge and dip each apple in chocolate so its completely covered, ears and all. I had to use a spoon to drizzle chocolate over the ears so it was completely covered in chocolate. When you're finished place them on a clean piece of wax paper. They should look like this when you are done.

7.) Then you want to place the chocolate apples in the fridge and let them set overnight. 

8.) Once the chocolate has set it's time to make the pink skirt. You're going to want to melt the white chocolate chips the same way you did the chocolate and caramel. Let the white chocolate cool a little so it doesn't melt the chocolate and caramel off of the apples. Then dip each apple in white chocolate, place about six white peppermint patty candies on each apple and sprinkle with pink sugar over each apple shake the excess fall off. If the white chocolate starts to harden add more mix to the mix and stir until smooth. Place each apple back on the wax paper to cool then refrigerate.

9.) Wait about and hour before removing from the refrigerator.

10.) Then tie pink and white ribbons on each one and you're ready to serve!

The candy apples were a hit! The other tasty treat I made for my daughter's birthday were these cute little Minnie Mouse cupcakes.

Minnie Mouse Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

1 Chocolate Cake Mix

Half a bag of peanut butter chips

2 tsps of Vanilla extract

1 box of oreo cookies

1 box of mini oreo cookie

1 can of vanilla frosting

1 bag of twizzlers pull apart licorice

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make cake mix as instructed and mix in 2 tsps of vanilla extract and peanut butter chips. Batter will be lumpy because of the peanut butter chips scoop out batter into cupcake liners. I use a ice cream scooper to add the perfect amount. Bake for 20 minutes.

2.) Remove from oven and allow the cupcakes to cool.

3.) Once the cupcakes have cooled frost them and then place one large oreo in the middle and two small oreos on each side around the large oreo for ears. Repeat for each cupcake.

4.) Pull each the twizzlers apart and mold into a bow you may to use a toothpick to dip in the frosting and add a little bit of frosting to the back of the bow and stick onto the oreo to act as glue. 

Now you have cute and tasty little cupcakes that everyone will enjoy!

Photo Credit: All Photos Courtesy of Me