Mickey shaped churro cookies have arrived at Disneyland, and as soon as I saw them in the Candy Palace, I knew I wanted to create my very own at home! If you love churros and cookies as much as I do, be sure to check out this recipe!

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The Ingredients

For this recipe I went with a classic sugar cookie type recipe with addition of cinnamon. I went with a 1:1 split between brown sugar and white granulated sugar because I like the flavor of brown sugar a little better, and like the softer texture that comes with using brown sugar. Depending on your preferred texture, you can adjust the ratio between brown and white sugar, or just use one or the other entirely. Of course with brown sugar, you’ll get a darker colored cookie.

The Process

We start off by creaming the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy. The butter should be softened but still cool when creaming it since warm butter will be denser and not as easily whipped. If your butter is a bit too warm, go ahead and put it back in the refrigerator for a short period of time to bring the temperature back down.

After the butter is creamed, add in the egg and vanilla and continue to beat until it’s well-mixed. I used half and egg in this recipe because I wanted to make a pretty small batch. Doubling everything up will allow you to use a single egg; but to get half an egg I used a scale to measure out the wait of a single egg, beat it with a fork until it was well mixed, then measured out half its weight.

I sifted and whisked all the dry ingredients all together, then slowly incorporated it into the wet mixture until it was all combined. At this point the dough was very soft and sticky so I kneaded it a bit more manually while it was still in the mixing bowl, then transferred it to a well-floured surface. Using a rolling pin (or in my case, a tall glass cup), I rolled out the dough so that it was about a 1/4 inch thick, then used my handmade cookie cutter to cut out my Mickey shapes.

To make my cookie cutter, I used cardstock and cut it into strips that were about 1 to 1 1/2 inch thick, then formed the Mickey head shape by curling different strips and taping them together. Then I wrapped the card stock with aluminum foil to protect the paper from getting soggy and taped the ends of that so that the foil would stay in place. This is a really easy and cheap way to make cookie cutters in basically any simple shape! It’s of course a bit more challenging to use since the paper is very malleable so you’ll need to hold its shape as you press down into the dough, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a really simple process!

I baked the cookies for about 10 minutes, though you can bake them a bit longer if you want harder textured cookies (I like mine soft!), then I let them cool while I prepared the frosting.

For the frosting, I beat together powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, and almond milk. Any milk of choice will do here, and one with more fat content may even be a bit better, though it’s a small amount so it doesn’t have that large an impact on the texture. For a thicker frosting, add more powdered sugar to your preference. For a thinner frosting, add more milk.

After the cookies were completely cooled, I piped the frosting onto the cookies in swirls, and then I was done!

The Results

My Mickey churro cookies turned out quite a bit darker brown than the parks’ ones because I used more brown sugar and added a decent amount of cinnamon to mine. I prioritized my flavor preference over matching the same exact look (which is what’s so great about making your own recipes at home!) So instead of having a light beige cookie with a brown frosting, I went for an inverse of that with a brown cookie and light beige frosting instead!

I kept the frosting as a simple vanilla flavor to allow the cookie to be the one that brings out all that cinnamon goodness, since there’s just so much more of it, and I was extremely happy with how it came out! The cookie itself is not too sweet and has more of a cinnamon flavor, whereas the frosting adds in most of the sweetness. I think they balance each other out really well so that this isn’t an overpoweringly sweet cookie, but it’s just enough to satisfy you.

The texture of the cookie is super soft and pillow-y which I love, but again, for anyone who likes crispier and less chewy cookies, I would use a larger white to brown sugar ratio.

I love simple sugar cookie recipes because they’re so easy to make, you’ll typically have most of the ingredients on hand, and you can spice them up however you like to make them a little more you! Go ahead and give this recipe a try and adjust it to be exactly how you want it.

Mickey Churro Cookies

Ingredients

Cookie

ºoº 1/2 cup butter, softened
ºoº 1/4 cup brown sugar
ºoº 1/4 cup granulated sugar
ºoº 1/2 egg
ºoº 1 tsp vanilla extract
ºoº 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
ºoº 1 tbsp cinnamon
ºoº 1 tsp baking powder
ºoº 1/8 tsp salt
ºoº 1 tsp cinnamon

Frosting

ºoº 1 cup powdered sugar
ºoº 3 tbsp butter, softened
ºoº 1 tsp vanilla extract
ºoº 1 tsp almond milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F

2. Cream the butter with the white and brown sugar until light and fluffy

3. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract, then set aside

4. Sift together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon

5. Slowly incorporate the dry mixture into the wet mixture until just incorporated, then knead/fold together until smooth

6. On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness, then use your chosen cookie cutters to cut out your favorite shapes! (Or stick to some classic circles!)

7. Transfer to a parchment paper lined baking sheet

8. Bake for 8-10 minutes. If you like some tougher outer shells, you can bake for longer

9. While the cookies are cooling, beat together the powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla until smooth

10. Once the cookies are fully cooled, pipe or spread the icing onto the tops of the cookies

Notes

ºoº This recipe makes some really soft sugar cookies! If you’re a fan of something crispier, then you may want to adjust the white to brown sugar ratio and use more white than brown sugar

ºoº The icing takes about 24 hours to harden, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to stack them until then

ºoº For thicker icing that is a little harder when rested, add more powdered sugar

ºoº If you want some extra special sparkles, add some sparkling sugar to the tops of your cookies so they look just like the ones from Disneyland!