Mickey & Minnie mouse cupcakes

Which cartoon characters do you grow up with?  Which ones do you like the most?  Mickey and Minnie are probably the most recognizable icon of Disney.  They've been around for years!  A co-worker for mine invited me to her son's first birthday party.  The theme she uses is going to be Mickey mouse :) So I thought, it would be nice to bake some Mickey and Minnie mouse cupcakes to celebrate Nicolai's first birthday!  So I searched and searched for some ideas, finally I found something that is super cute!  The original recipe calls for toothpicks to hold the mini oreos together, but I'm afraid that someone will bite on the toothpick and poke their mouth!  So I found an alternative to toothpick that is edible and it works like a charm :)

Mickey & Minnie Mouse Cupcakes
(24 Servings ~ 182 calories each)
Recipe adapted from sweet tooth

Ingredients:
1 box Betty Croker's SuperMoist vanilla cake mix
1 cup of water
4 egg whites
1/3 unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1 package of Super thin chocolate pocky sticks
6-8 Reduced fat Oreo cookies
48 pieces mini Oreo cookies
4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 cups Confectioner's sugar
2 tbsp unsweetened coco powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp nonfat milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325F, line a standard muffin pan with cupcake liners (I used red with white polka dots for Mickey, and white with red polka dots for Minnie), set aside.

2. Prepare cake mix by mixing cake mix, water, egg whites, applesauce and sour cream.  Beat mixture on slow speed for 30 seconds then switch to medium speed for 2 minutes.

3. Pour batter into muffin tin 3/4 full and bake for 20-22 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely.

4. Prepare frosting: in a medium bowl, cream butter with an electric hand mixer, add Confectioner's sugar, coco powder, vanilla extract and milk, beat until it is the right consistency for frosting.

5. Frost cupcakes, try to make a dome shape.

6. Remove the cream filling from Oreo cookies, crash the cookies in a food processor, then dip the frosted cupcakes into Oreo cookie crumbs.

7. Prepare the "ears": cut each super thin pocky chocolate stick in half, set aside.  Halve the mini Oreo cookies, stick one pocky chocolate stick on the cream, then smear some cupcake frosting on top.  Then sandwich the other half of the mini Oreo cookie and hold everything together. 

8. Insert the "ears" into the cupcakes.

9. Prepare fondant bows: basic marshmallow fondant recipe is here, roll out small pieces of fondant.  Squeeze both ends, fold it in the middle, then use another piece to wrap it together. 

N for Nicolai :)

Ready for the P-A-R-T-Y!

Minnie tastes sweet :)