Disney Food for Families columnist Erin Foster has a fun project for anyone who’s ever loved rice krispie treats and vinylmation!
Second only to my family’s love of Disney food is our love of Disney Vinylmation. These collectible figurines all start with the same Mickey-shaped base, but are designed by artists to resemble other characters, park elements, cultural touchstones, or random cool designs. My daughters and I have spent many a happy hour in the parks hunting for and trading Vinylmations. Some of our favorite finds have been food-themed Vinyls.
We’ve been impressed with the execution of classic Disney-food items in Vinyl: the Mickey bar, the turkey leg, the box of popcorn. One day while speculating about which delicious icon might be Vinylized next, my daughter Josie came up with the idea that Disney should make a Rice Krispie treat themed Vinylmation — a plastic depiction of the ubiquitous bakery-case treat.
We discussed the idea for quite a while but eventually forgot about it until we saw the uber-cool Vinylmation ice cube trays released.
Yes, other people thought the ice cube trays would make great chocolate molds (and they would), but we were convinced that they would be awesome Krispie molds. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Our attempt to use the ice cube trays as Krispie molds was a marshmallow mess.
As it turns out, the individual compartments are substantially smaller than the standard 3-inch Vinylmations. This is good for ice, but suboptimal for something with a rough texture. Not to be dissuaded, we decided to create our own life-sized mold using Sculpey-brand modeling clay. We created two clay rectangles and pushed Mickey’s front into one slab and Mickey’s back into the other. We baked the clay as directed to harden it.
Once the mold was cool, we coated it with a little standard cooking oil spray, plopped in a blob of fresh, hot Krispie mash (made according to the recipe on the box), and then pressed the halves of the mold together. Reeeeeeeally hard.
Drum roll please …..

But with a teeny trim with the tip of a paring knife, he turned out to be quite the handsome fellow.
Once we had a bit of success under our belts, we decide to take the project a step further by customizing a vinyl Vinylmation with a Krispie coating. For those of you new to the Vinylmation phenomenon, customizing the figures is a sizable subculture of the cult. Disney makes several colors of plain Vinylmations that are specifically intended for customization. There are websites such as vinylnation.net that showcase these one-of-a-kind creations. Our strategy was basically to decoupage Rice Krispies onto the Vinyl base using Mod Podge glue.
We first removed Mickey’s arms and set them aside. We then used a small paintbrush to cover one side of Mickey with a thin layer of glue. Then, using the gluey brush, we stuck individual Krispies to the base. We then painted over the now stuck-on Krispies with more glue. This gave the entire thing a protective, plasticized coating.
We learned after the first application of Krispies that, much like cereal in milk, cereal in glue tends to collapse and shrink a bit. So, as the glue dried, we had to go over each side of Mickey with several layers of Krispies, filling in gaps where necessary. We left Mickey out on a work table and the girls took turns adding cereal when they saw spaces open up.
A total of about an hour of work, spread out over several days of cycling through Krispie application and drying, yielded a completely Krispie-covered Vinylmation. We then added Krispies to the arms and reattached them. Once complete, we sprayed the entire thing with several coats of spray acrylic sealer as a preservative. We ended up with a real-life tasty treat and a permanent facsimile of a Disney food favorite.
When we completed the project, I asked Josie if this was what she had in mind when she brainstormed the Krispie Vinylmation idea. She was largely satisfied, especially after I let her eat all the Krispie treat scraps; but then she got this brain-working-overtime look on her face and said, “Now we need to make a Dole Whip Vinylmation Mickey.” Um, I think I’m going to leave that one up to the good folks at the parks to figure out.
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This is a special kind of crazy only Disney fans possess. And I say that with love, obviously.
Good for you for sticking with the project, despite things not always working out as planned!! I would have thought the ice cube trays would have worked too… but I am VERY impressed with your molds! What a fun (and tasty) project!
Just an idea, it’s too bad they don’t make Vinylmation cookie cutters or pancake molds (unless they do!), I bet that would have worked as well.
Kelly – LOL. Disney crazy describes me to a tee 🙂
Sara – I have scoured the parks and not found any Vinylmation cookie cutters or pancake molds. Though now that you’ve put that thought into my head, I may have to figure out how to create my own.
Our next step of the project may be to create a mold for a 9″ Vinylmation. I think we’d be able to show much more detail there. And maybe even dip it in chocolate!
Love it! I’m a sucker for Vinylmation.
Erin, you sure love your Vinylmation! 😉
Wonderful idea! The problem with Rice Krispies is that it only likes to take larger shapes and can’t take detail very well unless you crush it up do to the odd shape of the pieces.
The Krispie Mickey reminds me of the $50 Rice Krispie Mickey that Matt (StudiosCentral) posted this past week. . . Crazy!
Hi Erin,
I was directed to your post from another VinylNation forumite, and while I love your custom, the food scientist in me took it as a challenge to make Rice Krispy Treats using the ice trays.
I’m pleased to report that after some tinkering, it was a success. 🙂 Links to pics, for verification:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phylers/5528507834/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phylers/5528507828/
Hi Drew –
I love that you took on the challenge to create a better Mickey! Your photos are great.
My only concern is that, as Josh mentioned, it looks like you had to crush the Krispies quite a bit to get detail in the Mickey. This doesn’t impact the visual appeal, but my guess is that it does impact the taste and mouthfeel of the product.
My plan for the Krispie “Vinyls” is to use them to decorate a cake. For that purpose, I think your crushed Krispie Mickeys using the ice cube trays is certainly a viable, and less time consuming, method than my custom mold version.
Thanks for sharing!
Erin