I don't know about you, my we LOVE the minions from Despicable Me. I saw a facebook post last week that had a minion cupcake and I love love loved it. I had to make some of my own.
If you're not familiar with minions, here's one of the many youtube videos showcasing them ...
And here are some of my minions
Want to make some? I know you do. First bake some cupcakes, any flavor you wish, I made vanilla cupcakes. (They're a little brown on top but oh so yummy)
Now, you need some cream filled, oblong shaped sponge cakes ... most commonly known as Twinkies. Now, I've been told Twinkies are back in stores, but we did not find them, these are some other brand, a Twinkie knock-off, and since it's a knock-off, it really wasn't very yummy. BUT we're going for looks here, not taste (though taste is always a plus). The kids didn't care about the knock-off's though, so it turned out just fine. Unwrap those goodies and using a serrated knife, cut each one in half.
**Note that there's only 10 in a package, so I could only have 20 minions (but you could buy more, if you desire a plethora of minions). I had 4 cupcakes leftover, I made some owls, easy peasy, I'll show you how another time.
So here we go ... the start of a minion
For the goggles (and eyes) I needed something nice and round, but small enough to go on that sponge cake, enter smarties. Some people like them, kids seem to love them, I hate them, but they were perfect for what we need.
Unwrap a bunch of them and spill them all over the table, I mean, put them in a shallow dish. Now, we really only need the white ones, but if you look at the smarties, white is a rare color, so let's use white and the very pale yellow.
Go ahead and separate them ... I did
Remember we're making cupcakes, so you'll need frosting. Almost any kind will do, my favorite is cream cheese frosting, but a buttercream would be equally as easy to work with here. You will need a base color for the cupcakes (I used blue) and you'll need black frosting to draw on your Twinkies (or knock-offs, whichever you can find/purchase or wish to use).
To color frosting, I like to use either gel or paste food coloring, it gives you great color without watering down your frosting or having to use a ton of color (unless you're going to make black or a dark red, then you'll be using a bunch of the gel/paste food coloring). If you're going to color your own black frosting and do not have an aversion to chocolate, I would suggest starting with chocolate frosting and adding black food coloring to darken the frosting quicker.
Now, bag some black frosting and pipe a little onto a smartie and put it on that sponge cake. Minions come with either one or two eyes, so vary it up, it'll be fun.
Don't forget to pipe some black on top of those "goggles" and add a strap. The rest is up to you. Minions have eyes and a mouth. We could go into clothes and arms, but this is simple and easy and PERFECT!!!
I found it easiest to pipe the face and goggles on the minion and then place it on the frosted cupcake, then we did the hair.
Some have hair, smiles, frowns, anything goes here.
A few of our sponge cakes were a little broken at the top, so we had a minion that was stabbed with a pretzel. It was truly devastating (and the most popular one, all the kids wanted him).
We even made one a girl. Eyelashes, a pearl necklace and some long hair ... she was the prettiest of the bunch.
Enjoy!!!!
