Magical Rainbow Hidden Mickey Cake

(Last Updated On: December 1, 2019)

My son asked for another Hidden Mickey cake this year.  With a twist. He wanted rainbows inside.

The theme for his Birthday party was Fantasia and references to the Sorcerer’s apprentice were plentiful. I thought I’d try my hand at some magic of my own. I’ve always wanted to try out a “twice baked” cake and Disney had kindly sent me a Mickey mouse cookie cutter as part of the #Disneyside party planning package I’d received when I signed up to host a party for them.

I knew people would ask me how to make this Hidden Mickey cake so I am providing some directions, with the caveat that I pretty much winged it.  But this method worked perfectly for me and wasn’t too difficult. No special skills required. All it took was a little patience and prep work. It can work for you too if you are game to try!

This recipe actually makes a little more cake batter than you need. There will be enough chocolate batter leftovers to make a few cupcakes and you can plan to make and freeze whole slew of cakeballs from the colorful cut out leavings, if you want to. You do not have to use box mix but I’m “lazy”. It’s enough that I’m making such a crazy cake, I cheat a little!

Here’s what you’ll need :

• 2 boxes of white (not yellow) cake mix
• 2 boxes of chocolate for a 3 inch high,
• 10 inch round, 3 inch high springform pan.

1. First (I did this day before) mix up the white cake batter and divide into 4-6 bowls. Color each a bright color and then bake in separate pans. I used 8 inch rounds and baked thinnish layers. Watch carefully not to overcook them!
2. When the colorful cakes are cool, cut out a million Mickeys with a Mickey head shaped cookie cutter. It’s imperative that you have a good cookie cutter to keep the cutouts consistent in size. Don’t worry so much about thickness.
3. Now mix up that chocolate batter. Spray your springform pan really really well. Pour in just enough batter to coat the bottom. Now stack the Mickeys so that they are as closely aligned and tightly packed as possible. Alternate colors.  This would really be SO much easier in a loaf or square pan, but I’m all about challenges, so I went with round.  Note: I did this twice and had better results putting in the Mickey heads upside down and then trimming/leveling the “top” of the cake and flipping it to present and serve it. 
4. In order to make your stacked Mickeys form a ring, you may have to trim a few to make them more wedge shaped, and you may have to “fill in” with slivers of a partial Mickey where there is a gap. Don’t stress too much though, it will still work even if you are not perfect with it. I was not perfect!  This phone was the less successful of the two cakes, with the right side up Mickeys, but it still worked!

Pour the rest of the batter over the Mickeys, say a little prayer and bake your cake. Test for doneness in the center.

After cooling, releasing from pan and trimming the top (now bottom) of the cake, I opted to dress the cake in a simple marshmallow fondant. It’s actually very fun to make this stuff and surprisingly easy too. It tastes way better than store bought fondant, is far less expensive and a great project to try with kids. If you are making one color, add food coloring to the melted marshmallows as it’s easier to get it all incorporated that way.

We cut the stars out from the same fondant and sprinkled them with twinkle dust, which is non toxic but more for decorative use.  You probably shouldn’t eat it, so I recommend taking off the stars when you serve, if you dust them.

The figurine is actually a Disney Infinity Mickey. My son wanted this character for his collection way more than anything I could model and he could eat.

All the kids were thrilled to see the hidden Mickey’s appear as we sliced the cake and could not wait to see what color Mickey they would get!

Here’s a link to last year’s cake creation – Hidden Mickey Ice Cream Cake