Minion Cupcakes: DIY

I searched around several local bakery's and wasn't too impressed with their options. I decided that I would do it myself and save a ton of money in the process. I used a boxed cake mix (my son wanted Chocolate) and a homemade icing recipe that I use for all of my cakes. You will also need an icing bag (or a few Ziploc bags with the tip cut off) and a few of the Wilton icing tips and connectors. I also used Wilton food coloring gel (these can be found at your local craft store or at Walmart in the craft section) because it creates more vivid colors than the liquid food coloring and doesn't water the icing down. I used a box of Twinkies to act as my Minions.

While your cupcakes are cooking make your Buttercream icing and mix your colors to the directions above. Once your icing is complete and you have all your colors mixed the next step is to cut all your Twinkies in half.

Fill your pastry bags with white icing for the eyes. You will use a Wilton tip #2 for this. Squeeze a small amount of icing onto the Twinkies as the eyes. Don't forget that some of the Minions only have 1 eye. When you're done with all of your eyes it should look like the following picture.

Fill your other pastry bag with your black icing. You will use the Wilton tip #1 for this color. The black will be used for the pupil, the hair, the smile, and the glasses. Start off by creating your Minions pupil by squeezing a small amount of icing onto the white eyeball you created in Step 2. When all of your Minions have pupils you can start on their glasses. You will simply trace the white eyeball with your black icing and create the ear pieces by doing a thin line towards the back of the Minions head. Once this daunting task is complete you can move on to the more fun things like their hair and their smiles. I tried to switch things up and gave three different hair styles and some of them had smirks instead of full-on smiles. Use your creativity for this part and they will look fantastic!

Now that all of your Minions have faces and your cupcakes have probably had time to cool you can ice them with your blue icing. I used a large round Wilton tip for this. In a spiral motion slowly squeeze your blue icing onto your cupcakes making sure there is no cake showing though.

Now that you have cupcakes iced and your Minions are decorated you can combine the two. Pick up your Minions and gently push them down into the middle of your cupcakes. If they seem unsteady you can add a bead of icing around the base of the Minion to help stabilize it. Repeat this step until all of your Minions are successfully mounted on their own cupcakes.

If you are having to transport these to a party location that involves a car ride you may want to invest a cake box or a cupcake box. These can be purchased at your local craft store or some of the local bakery's will let you purchase the container from them for $1-$2. I made the mistake of leaving them on a flat piece of cardboard for transportation and the first turn we made found myself juggling my Minion army. Luckily there were only a few Minions harmed during that car ride.