Minion Lemon Mini-Cakes

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Get ready for a Minions DVD viewing party with your favorite little minions and these lemon minion mini-cakes and minion goggle cupcakes.  With the kids out on holiday break soon, you might be wondering how you're going to entertain them for all of that time.  We have skiing, ice skating, snowshoeing and sledding on our list, but we're also going to need some inside activities. Who can resist a minion??  Makes these for your kids or with your kids!

You can order your copy of Minions online at Target.com and pick up, in store, or you can head to Target right now and pick up the ingredients you'll need for the lemon minion mini-cakes.

 Minions Metalpak Blu-ray/DVD - Deluxe is a Target exclusive!  Plus, 40+ minutes of bonus content!  There is even another bonus revealed at the end of this post.

We're making our own fondant to cover the mini-cakes, so grab a bag of mini-marshmallows and powdered sugar.  Look for the red and white bags Market Pantry packaging!

Lemon Sponge Cake
2 sticks of butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
4 medium eggs
2tbsp milk
Finely zested rind of 2 lemons

Cream butter, sugar, eggs, milk, lemon zest, add flour.  My cupcakes baked 13min at 350F.  The mini-cakes baked 16min at 350F.

I don't always have the just-right baking supplies, so I like to get creative and look at pans/cutters for other uses. I used a baking pan with gingerbread men- planning to trim the sides to create the oval shaped minions, as you'll see below:

The mini-cakes are trimmed to the 3 shapes of the minions and placed in the freezer before crumb coating.

 Mini-cakes are crumb coated and cupcakes and frosted.

Now to make the fondant.  If you haven't made marshmallow fondant, jump right in...it's much easier than you'd think.  Melt the marshmallows with water in a glass bowl in the microwave.  Make sure to grease a mixing bowl and mixing paddle, and then add the melted marshmallows and the whole bag of powered sugar to the mixing bowl and combine.  Empty the bowl onto a greased surface for kneading smooth.  Wrap tightly until use.

The great thing about using marshmallow fondant is that you can warm in the microwave for a few seconds and it is more pliable.  Color some of the fondant bright yellow.  Roll thin and drape over the mini-cakes.

Color some of the fondant blue and wrap the lower section of the minion in overalls.  I use a sharp knife to cut the shape.  Think long rectangle with a square cut out above the rectangle.  Add thin strips of blue for the overall straps and a half circle for the overall pocket.  A decorating tip works great as a small round cutter.

 Minion eyes:  color some fondant gray.  Roll out white fondant and cut small circles with a decorating tip.  Use a smaller decorating tip to cut out the middle of the gray circle for the goggle rim.

Using some of the left-over yellow fondant, cut a half circle for the minion eye lid.  I used the white candy eyeballs and brushed some brown food coloring with a paintbrush to color the eyes brown.  You could also color some fondant brown and add a small black dot of fondant in the center.

 After the cupcakes were frosted, I dipped them in yellow sanding sugar.

Follow the same instructions for the goggles on the cupcakes, but use larger circle cutters. For the mini-cakes, I added fondant arms/hands, legs/boots.  If you don't have time to let the fondant set and harden, insert a piece of angel hair pasta into the arms for support and to easily attach to the minion.

Oh, before I forget, when you grab your Minions DVD, don't forget to grab the (free with purchase of the exclusive Metalpak) $5 Target Gift Card.

We are all set for our viewing of Minions.  Let Target be your one-stop-shop for movie night, too!