Baked Mickey-Shaped Beignets Recipe
Mickey-shaped beignets are another one of Disneyland’s classic treats. Located in New Orleans Square, the famous Mint Julep Bar serves up these delicious, sweet pillow pastries alongside their refreshing Mint Julep. You can often find yummy seasonal flavored beignets here, but what the crowds oftentimes are flocking to line up for is the classic powdered sugar Mickey-shaped beignets.
Now because of stay-at-home orders in place and the closure of Disneyland (with good reason, of course), the only way you can enjoy these delectable goodies are in your own home. The lovely people at Disneyland have actually graciously decided to share their recipe with us so that we can actually enjoy our own beignets! However, I am not at all a fan of deep frying in my own kitchen, so I decided to try out a baked rendition of the Mickey shaped beignets!
I used this recipe as a starting point, but made a few minor tweaks and halved the recipe. To see my adjustments, check them out below!
Click here to skip to the recipe
The Ingredients
I didn’t have super fine sugar, so I ground the regular sized granulated sugar that I did have in a coffee grinder.
The Process
After mixing together the sugar, water, and yeast, I let the mixture sit. From what I read about replacing active dry yeast with instant yeast, it seems like the waiting step isn’t necessary with instant yeast, but since I’m not super familiar with the ways of yeast, I decided to just follow the recipe as if I was using active dry yeast. I did, however, reduce the amount of yeast by 25%.
At the kneading step I actually had to add quite a lot of additional flour to get the dough to pull off the bowl, but I added very little at a time to allow it to incorporate before adding more to make sure I didn’t make the dough too dry.
Now because I don’t actually have a Mickey shaped cookie cutter, but I wanted my beignets Mickey-shaped, so I had to get creative! With come card stock, aluminum foil, and a can-do attitude, I made my own makeshift Mickey cookie cutter, and it actually proved to be a pretty good tool! Is it as good as a real cookie cutter? No. The bottom edges are not sharp enough to do a clean cutting job, so you can actually see the remnants of the splitting edges at the sides of each beignet. BUT this isn’t very noticeable after it’s been baked, so I think it actually did a really good job and was really happy with the results!
Watching the little beignets puff up in the oven was so exciting!!
These little treasures came out so light and cute! Because of all the puffing the ears and body are definitely less defined but I think that actually just makes them look softer and more adorable!
Here’s the finished product!
The Verdict
Were they yummy?
Yes! I actually thoroughly enjoyed these beignets. They were really light and airy which is something I love about beignets. They’re definitely denser than the deep fried beignets you can get at Disneyland, but it’s actually such a great substitute!
Would I make this again?
I think so! There are definitely some steps I would like to redo now that I have the experience from this attempt, like maybe kneading the dough in less time because I feel I may have over-kneaded the dough resulting in it being a little more dense than maybe it could have been. I’d also love to experiment with different flavors too!
Can they replace Disneyland beignets?
No, they can’t. Disneyland beignets have a special place in my heart that’s just irreplaceable. But these will do a perfect job at tiding me over until the parks open again!
I encourage anyone who’s interested to take a crack at this! And if you do try it out, let me know how it goes! It really is a yummy treat, and I would say a rousing success!
Baked Mickey-shaped Beignets
Inspiration recipe can be found here
Ingredients
ºoº 3/8 cup lukewarm water
ºoº 1/8 cup super fine sugar
ºoº 3/4 tsp instant yeast
ºoº 1/2 beaten egg
ºoº 1/4 tbsp vinegar
ºoº 3 3/4 tbsp oat milk (basically enough to add to the vinegar to make ¼ cup total)
ºoº 1 1/2 tbsp melted butter
ºoº 1/4 tsp salt
ºoº 1 tsp vanilla extract
ºoº 1 7/8 cup flour more as needed
ºoº splash of oat milk (for brushing)
ºoº powdered sugar (for dusting)
Directions
Stir together the vinegar and oat milk to make the buttermilk substitution. Allow it to sit and curdle for at least 5-10 minutes. This should be ready by the time you need to use it
Whisk together the water, sugar, and yeast and allow it to sit for 10 minutes
Preheat the oven to 200°F and line your baking sheets with parchment paper (I used 2)
Mix in egg, buttermilk mixture, butter, salt, and vanilla into the yeast mixture
Using a dough hook, mix in flour on low to medium speed until the dough pulls away from the bowl cleanly (Here is where you would add additional flour if needed)
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover with a towel. With the oven turned off, place the bowl inside with the door slightly open for 15 minutes
Remove the bowl and reheat the oven to 200°F
Roll out the dough onto a floured surface and cut your dough into desired shapes and place onto your baking sheets (Mickeys for the win! But you can also just cut them into rectangles/squares)
Cover the baking sheets with lightly greased plastic wrap
Turn off the preheated oven and put the baking sheets into the oven for 30 minutes with the door slightly open (Prepare for the poofs!)
Remove the baking sheets and preheat the oven to 375°F
While the oven is preheating, brush the beignets with milk
Place the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes until the tops are lightly browned to your taste
After the beignets have cooled, cover with powdered sugar!
Notes
ºoº The original recipe called for active dry yeast but I used instant yeast instead. You may not need
to wait the 10 minutes for the yeast, sugar, water mixture to foam, but I did anyway
ºoº I ended up adding roughly another ½ cup of flour when kneading my dough to get the right
consistency
ºoº I baked the beignets for 8-10 minutes instead of 10-12 as they were the light brown color that I
wanted and I didn’t want them to become too dry
ºoº You can use any kind of milk to brush the beignets before baking as long as they have a similar
fat content to whole milk
ºoº I skipped brushing the butter on top of the baked beignets before dusting with powdered sugar