Crissa's Cake Corner!: Minnie Mouse Cookies, Cake Pops & Gingerbread

Baby Noelle was having a Minnie Mouse-Christmas-themed birthday celebration. Minnie Mouse and Christmas? Well as it goes, a little baby girl was born on Christmas eve last year, and her parents named her Noelle! How sweet is that?

For the party, I got to make Minnie and Mickey sugar cookies, Gingerbread boys and girls and Minnie Mouse cake pops, which were featured on the sweet dessert table styled by Sugarena. First up, the sugar cookies. I am happy to have finally discovered that rolling the dough thinner and baking the cut-outs from frozen have really helped to minimize the spreading. The cookies still spread maybe a quarter of a centimeter larger than the cookie cutter.

Mickey & Minnie Sugar Cookies

To decorate the cookies, I cut out fondant shapes using the same Mickey cookie cutter. I wanted the cookies to be flat and not have layer upon layer of fondant. For example, for the polka dot part of the Minnie cookies, I cut out lots of fondant white dots using a large round piping tip. Then, instead of just placing the dots directly on top of the red fondant (which would have an undesired 3D effect), I cut holes out of the red fondant using the same round piping tip, then placed white dots back in the holes. The bows on the Minnie cookies were made out of red fondant hearts, with royal icing polka dots.

Minnie Mouse Sugar Cookies

The Mickey cookies were more straightforward than the Minnie cookies: just black and red fondant cut out using the Mickey cookie cutter, sliced in half and then spliced back together. For Mickey's buttons, this time I did want the 3D effect so I stuck the fondant ovals right on top of the red fondant. I had to ask my son what colour Mickey's buttons were cuz I couldn't remember if they were white or yellow!

Mickey Mouse Sugar Cookies

For the Gingerbread people, I used what seems to be darker molasses cuz the cookies look a bit tanned. Hey, it is a tropical Christmas down here, right? The gingerbread men had royal icing zig-zags on their arms and legs, and fondant eyes, a mouth, buttons and a bow. Rolling out their teeny buttons was time-consuming but I love the delicate effect. I was going to use brown mini m&m's for the buttons but they just weren't small enough to look cute!

Gingerbread Boys looking sharp

The Gingerbread girls had on red & white polka-dot dresses and polka-dot bows, made in the same way as the Minnie cookies. Royal icing was used to attach all the details onto the cookies, and also to outline the dresses and for the ribbons.

Gingerbread girls dressed up for the Minnie Mouse party

I love how the Gingerbread boys and girls turned out! They look like they're ready to go on a date. Or at least to a nice Christmas party.

My favourite bake for this party, though, has to be these adorable Minnie Mouse cake pops! Instead of making "Minnie's head" cake pops, I made her polka-dot skirt and used a paper cutout for the top half of her body. The cake ball is chocolate cake, which was moist enough on its own that I didn't have to swirl it with buttercream after crumbling, as I usually do when making cake pops. I then shaped the crumbled cake into bells and froze them solid before dipping them into red candy melts.

The polka-dots were piped on using royal icing and a round piping tip. I love the effect of the white ruffling on the skirt, which was piped on with royal icing using tip no. 104 (the same tip used to make rose petals). It makes the Minnie cake pop look more fancy! And Sugarena totally picked the perfect image for the Minnie paper topper. It's like Minnie's saying "come and eat me!" Why yes, I think I will!

Minnie Mouse Cake Pops

Here's the sweet Minnie Mouse-Christmas-themed birthday dessert table, put together by Sugarena. The goodies on this table blew me away!! Everything one could ever want for dessert was pretty much on this table. I am sure the birthday girl and her guests enjoyed diving into the sweets and the sugar high afterwards! Happy 1st Birthday, Noelle! And Merry Christmas :)