Disney's Hollywood Studios 25th Anniversary Cupcakes From Scratch!

Back in May, it was Hollywood Studios' 25th Anniversary (that park at Disney World in Florida that used to be called MGM) and the parks had a special cupcake for the occasion.  I believe it is very rare that they share a recipe, but on Disney's official blog, share it they did!  So here it is for you, and if you take it upon yourself to make, this is how it will most likely be!

This is my first recipe using coffee, so Jim & I went to Fairway Market and bought some Italian roast.

If you've never been to a Fairway, you should know they have a great coffee selection--barrels of beans, a nice person stationed there to answer your questions and make suggestions, and a grinder with all sorts of different options (I don't know much about coffee, so Jim helped out with this one.  I'm more of a tea and hot chocolate girl).

We brewed it in a Keurig single cup, and added it to the usual suspects (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder & soda), which was this (before the coffee):

Then we added the coffee and vegetable oil, and stirred it all up:

Then we added the eggs and I had to pick some shell out…

Jim handled mixing duties, and suggested pouring the batter into a spouted container (which I've been recommended to do before, but never tried).  I don't know where any pitchers are in the house, so we used this measuring cup. 

Ummm it ended up being the best idea ever.  Not only was there no stringy-batter mess across both tins, but each cupcake mold was filled quickly and uniformly.  I felt like I could work in a cupcake factory.

There you go, little ones!  See you in 25-30 minutes!

Meanwhile, we worked on the hazelnut-chocolate buttercream icing!

Which was mostly Crisco!  (I've never used Crisco in my baking and was a little hesitant to use it, but at least all the components are "vegetable."  I remember once I was at McDonald's and saw them adding a huge white block of something to the fryer, like a giant rectangle of ice, and that's when I first learned what shortening was, and stayed away from McDonald's for some time after that.)

But this is dessert and you can't care about things like that when you're eating cupcakes.

Fortunately, this was also a huge component:

I'll never understand all the Nutella-haters out there.  The only problem was the claim that it was a "healthy breakfast food."  Obviously it is not, but it's not going to destroy your life.  What if we said butter was a healthy breakfast food?  Well, it's not, but you still spread it on your toast!

So there you go, Crisco and hazelnut spread.  Mmmmm.  Of course there was also butter, vanilla, confectioner's sugar, and a couple spoons of milk.  Mix it all up!

Hey, cupcakes!  How are you doing?

Well they actually formed these coffee-bean shapes right in their centers, which freaked me out a little bit because there were no full or half beans in there.. Just the universe being awesome I guess.  They still needed some time before they were ready to come out.

So Jim loaded up my icing gun, right to the top, and when the cupcakes were ready, we began icing them!

It was really great because loading up the gun is the hardest part for me (besides cleaning it, of course, which I still haven't done).  I was glad to have Jim filling it every time I had emptied it!

Look at all them cupcakes!

This was my first time using this tip (heck if I know what it's called, but it made big, ribbony swirls.. Maybe a "number 5").  It was super easy to make them look awesome and fancy and bake-shop-y!

I felt like a pro!

And about 3-4 icing gun refills later, all the cupcakes were frosted, and there was still a TON of icing left.  We may make a cake just to use this delicious icing.  

The cupcakes themselves were surprisingly heavy--I think the cake part was so dense, but the icing was, too.  It was a wonderful combination of flavors!

In case you're curious, here's what it looks like with a bite or two taken out of it:

Then, just for fun, I google-image-searched the 25th anniversary logo from Hollywood Studios, printed it and cut it out in the shape of the logo they stuck into their cupcakes:

I taped it to a toothpick and put it in just one, and coated it in my own Minnie's Bake Shop Mickey-shaped sprinkles:

Et voila!  Your Park-certified Hollywood Studios 25th Anniversary Cupcake!  Thanks for posting the recipe, Disney Blog!