You’ve heard about the Monorail Crawl, Erin just created the Epcot Candy Crawl, and some of you have even attempted “drinking around the World” Showcase, but to my knowledge, this particular mission has never been attempted. It’s a feat only for the strong. A challenge for your sweet tooth. It’s the Cupcake Crawl!
That’s right. Those of you who live for cream cheese frosting, chocolate, cheesecake, and pure decadence — this one is for YOU! Disney Cupcake fans — are you brave enough to try it?
Cupcake Crawl Map -- click for larger image
The Disney Food Blog’s “Walt Disney World Cupcake Crawl” Strategy
Here’s the plan. You can either follow this step by step or mix and match, but be sure to visit these five locations and eat 10 different cupcakes by the end of the Crawl! (We understand if it takes you two days on your first try. It takes a while to build up a tolerance.)
By the way, most of these can be purchased for a Disney Dining Plan snack credit, so save up those snacks!
DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS: Cupcakes required = 4
While we still have strength and energy, we’re going to start at the mecca of cupcakes…Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ Starring Rolls Cafe, which closes early. That unfortunate bit of information can cause a sneak attack on your cupcake crawl if you leave it to visit at the end!
Starring Rolls Cafe
Here you’ll find a few of Disney’s most fantastic cupcakes, including the Butterfinger Cupcake, Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake, and the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake. Note that this spot closes at 4pm each day, so get here early or face Cupcake Crawl failure! Here are your targets in this location:
Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake: A towering dark chocolate delight. It doesn’t look like there’s any peanut butter in there, but wait until you taste the frosting!
- Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake: This fluffy confection is anything but light. Rich red velvet cake is covered in heavy cream cheese frosting. It’s all topped with a dollop of real cheesecake.
- Butterfinger Cupcake: One of our favorites, this mountain of a cupcake couples chocolate cake and chocolate fudge filling with that fabulous lard-y buttercream frosting. It’s all covered in Butterfinger candy crumbles.
- Marble Cupcake: One of Disney’s prettiest confections, you’ll find marbled vanilla and white cake stuffed with chocolate fudge and covered in buttercream. A chocolate fudge topper completes the dessert.
DISNEY’S BOARDWALK: Cupcakes required = 2
Exit Hollywood Studios and take the boat to the Boardwalk Resort. Better yet, walk off those cupcakes while strolling over to the Boardwalk! The Boardwalk Bakery is your next stop on this sweet journey.
Peanut Butter Cupcake
Boardwalk Bakery
Recently jumping up the list in cupcake importance, the Boardwalk Bakery changes out its seasonal cupcakes, so you never know what you’re going to get! The goal here is get two different cupcakes (if possible) from this location. Here are a few to choose from:
- Oreo Bon Bon Cupcake: A fluffy, chocolate cake confection is stuffed with cookies and cream buttercream icing and topped with vanilla. A bit too “whipped creamy” for our taste, but still a force to be reckoned with.
- Peanut Butter Cupcake: One of our favorite cupcakes of all time, this one should give you back your edge to be sure. Especially if peanut butter frosting the consistency of cookie dough is up your ally… YUM!!!!
- Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake: A lighter choice for those of you already starting to falter, this summery treat (a seasonal item) might just feel a bit less heavy in your tummy. Especially since the filling is strawberries instead of frosting. Note — this one also includes a hint of Grand Marnier, so don’t be surprised if you get carded 😉
DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM: Cupcakes required = 2*Note, should these cupcakes not be available (they’re not as reliable as they used to be!), visit the Contemporary Resort next to get the Black Forest Cupcake and the Dulce de Leche Cupcake — or another of the seasonal varieties!
Head over to the Boardwalk Inn’s bus stop and catch a ride to Disney’s Animal Kingdom for the next stop on our cupcake tour! Because this park often closes early, make sure you’re headed over by 3pm at the latest!
Zebra Cupcake
Once there, head to Africa and hightail it to Kusafiri Bakery.
Kusafiri Bakery
A tucked away bakery, Kusafiri has a few of our favorite “wild” cupcakes. Here are your targets on this leg of the journey:
- White Chocolate Elephant Cupcake: The only Disney cupcake we know of with a full-fledged chocolate-molded animal on top, the White Chocolate Elephant Cupcake pairs rich frosting with chocolate cake and toasted coconut. This one also packs the center with frosting, so be ready!
- Zebra Cupcake: This pretty, modern-art-like confection is Zebra-y in a very contemporary way. Stripes of white and dark chocolate are shaved and placed on the cupcake to give the “essence” of Zebra. 😉 We just like the super-thick frosting on top!
- Cotton Top Tamarin Cupcake: Even though I ate this cupcake in the pouring rain with my poncho sticking to my skin, I still loved it! That’s how good it is! Rich chocolate cake, thick buttercream frosting, and your very own chocolate Tamarin on top! Sigh.
DISNEY’S WILDERNESS LODGE: Cupcakes required = 1
From Animal Kingdom, grab a bus to Disney’s Wilderness Lodge! This relaxing oasis is one of our favorite resorts, and it just became even more favorite with the introduction of two new cupcakes in 2011! Your target location here is Roaring Fork counter-service location.
S'mores Cupcake
Roaring Fork
Walk all the way through the lobby at Wilderness Lodge and down toward the pool area to get to this counter-service spot. A cozy location with walls made out of “rock,” the cupcakes can be found in the bakery shelves toward the back of the restaurant. While these might not always be available, there should be at least one flavor there so that you can meet your Crawl quota!
- Carrot Cake Cupcake: Probably my favorite cupcake to date, this new addition couples a decent carrot cake base with some of the best cream cheese frosting I’ve found in Disney World — and in copious amounts. Now, understand that the cake part doesn’t matter all that much to me, so for those of you who want excellent cake, this might not be YOUR favorite…
- S’mores Cupcake: An innovative and thoroughly enjoyable treat, this cupcake offers a graham cracker-flavored cake with toasted marshmallow frosting (no kidding!!). You’ll find a few Hershey Bar squares in the center of the cake as well — brilliant!! The marshmallow makes it a lighter (if stickier) dessert.
EPCOT: Cupcakes required = 1
From the Wilderness Lodge, take a bus to Epcot for the last stop on the crawl. You’re headed to Karamell Küche in the Germany pavilion of the World Showcase.
Karamell Kuche vanilla cupcake
Karamell Küche
This brand new shop in Germany is sponsored by Werther’s and specializes in all things caramel, including some gorgeous cupcakes.
- Vanilla Caramel and Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes: These treats are topped with frosting the same flavor as their cakes, then drizzled with Werthers’ incredible caramel! A feast for the eyes and the stomach. Pick up either one to complete your Crawl!
Will you try it?
So what do you think? Is this on your list for your next visit? With only five stops and ten cupcakes overall, it’s not impossible! Let us know what you think!
And to see more of our favorite sweet treats, head over to our Disney World Cupcakes page!
Thanks to Michael S. for the heads’ up and reviews of the Strawberry Shortcake and Carrot Cake cupcakes and to Melissa Nute for the heads’ up on the S’mores Cupcake.
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holy cupcakes batman! this looks like an impossible task to crawl in a day – perhaps do the crawl over the whole week of vacation!! i LOVES me some cupcakes, but they all look so big and so good that i dont know if i could do it!! i was too scared to stay in starring rolls last time I went to hollywood studios because the cupcakes were so intense! i’ll have to do some sort of attempt in december when i go 🙂
Ooh. I think I’ll take on this challenge! Though it’ll take awhile to complete!
OMG AJ, you are mental! lol
I shared a marble cupcake at disney quest and I was comatose for 2 hours – literally fell asleep in disney quest. Hahahahaha!!
However, i think i may make a cupcake check-list for my up coming trip and check them off as I eat them. YUM!
We’ll be in WDW next week. Maybe we could attempt this as a family bonding/diabetes inducing experience. Better not tell the dentist….
OMG AJ this sounds insane!! I could almost feel the pounds adding on just reading about this, haha. The cupcakes all sound amazing and I have to for sure take note of a few to try on our trip. I really wish the Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake was not seasonal.. I REALLY want that but in October it probably will not be there… *sad face*
AJ, me thinks you should be the first to test this challenge before any of the rest of us attempt it 😉 That being said, we were so upset that we missed Starring Rolls because they closed SO early while we were there. I would not be able to do some of the cupcakes on this list thanks to walnut allergy, but no doubt others could be put in their place. Thanks for the fun idea.
I would do this over the span of my vacation. If I did it in one day, they’d be rushing to me to the hospital for sugar overload!!! LOL
Great concept! I’ve been doing a mini-cupcake crawl myself this trip! One location per day! But you left off the fabulous cupcakes at Contempo Cafe in the Contemporary Resort! And the Boardwalk Bakery now has the Orange Creamsicle Cupcake replacing the Strawberry Shortcake one.
It seems impossible to do this crawl. From a logistic point if view it’s a lot of traveling. From a gastric point of view it seems insane. And yet, to me, the World Showcase booze crawl seems perfectly normal and natural. Although for some reason by the time I get to the slushies in France, I actually am crawling.
Oh my gosh! This should be subtitled “How to go into a sugar coma at Disney”. That’s a crazy amount of ground to cover and a crazy amount of cupcakes. I’m not sure I could last, but I’m sure my kids would be up for it!
Oh man….I’ve got to do this….
This is great. What’s next? A “cult favorites” crawl? It could require a dole whip, a sweet pretzel from Germany, the school bread from Norway, the AKL zebra domes, some MK popcorn…the possibilities are endless!!
I think this may be the best thing I’ve ever read on any website ever!!!!!!! I love cupcakes, I love WDW, I love DisneyFoodBlog!!!
Now we all know that before an event like this you need to put in some serious training…well I have until Oct 2012 to increase my cupcake intake to allow me to complete this challenge…I’m not going to get caught out by those sneaky little sugar highs!!! 😉
This is inspired!!! AJ, you rock! I will do it, or go into a sugar coma trying! And by the way, I will NOT be consuming full cupcakes. I will go for the Cupcake Crawl Tasting and split them with friends.
Oh AJ – this one takes the cake, literally LOL! I couldn’t imagine trying this in one day UNLESS you just took a bit of each cupcake! Those cupcakes are HUGE! But I do have to say this is one inspired idea! 🙂
Oh my word, I’ve got to try this!! But to save myself from a diabetic coma, I believe I will split each cupcake with my family. I want to taste every flavor, just not consume that many entire cupcakes! My daughters & I did this recently with a local cupcakery. We sampled 7 cupcakes in one sitting. We were still on the verge of sugarholism, but it would have been so much worse if we hadn’t split them.
I agree that there are a couple cupcakes from Contempo Cafe that should be added to this “crawl”!! 🙂
YuM!
OMG AJ!! This is AWESOME! I will have to try to hit these on my next trip.
And who’s providing the insulin needed at the end of this? ;0)
Where to start…it’s a toss-up between the S’mores and the caramel. It’s a tough life.
Well, I’m doing the Goofy Challenge in January and this looks like a (not-so) perfect way to refuel! Challenge accepted!!! 🙂
I think I would be in better shape psysically after a traditional World Showcase crawl.
I am going to be doing a 3-part blog post about Disney “crawls” and am going to add a link to this one as well as Erin’s candy crawl from earlier.
Hmm…I figure if I’ve successfully Drank Around the World multiple times at Epcot, this challenge is right up my alley. 😉
I’m on the run and can only respond quickly (will be back to address each comment soon!), but I wanted to mention that we DID have the Contemporary on the list (2 cupcakes there). But after adding the Karamell Kuche cupcake, I decided that 12 cupcakes might be a bit much for one day, so I got rid of Contemporary’s offerings. Maybe we should do the “MEGA Cupcake Crawl” and include the Contemporary and Babycakes!!
Yessss!! I was sooo planning on trying something similar during our 2wk Dec trip!!With all the delicious goodies I’ve seen on here I knew for sure I’d be involving my family in numerous treat “crawls”! I am so glad you laid this challenge out for us!! We accept whole heartedly! Sugar coma here we come!
WOW get me a cold gallon of milk and cooler to keep it cold.. and bring it on…
This is my kind of challenge. I did Desserts Around the World (DATW) in 2009. a dessert in every country in worldshowecase…and yes i did it in one day.
This is going to have to be modified but in 1 month this is what Im doing.
Cupcake Crawl 2011. Ill spread it out over a week and add a few more. 🙂
AJ, you know we all love you. When I was going to the Food and Wine Festival you were there for this poor, overwhelmed eater. For that I will always be greatfull. I’ll always be here for this blog.
This cupcake issue, I know nobody ever talks about it, but it’s been here for a long time. It didn’t appear overnight. First it was one posting, then two, then a series about carrot cake, and a lot of posts pretending to be about other things but going back to cupcakes, or bringing up cupcakes. AJ, we’re worried now. This cupcake crawl… your cholesterol, sugar levels, let alone waistline. You are taking years off your life, and threatening to take others with you. Myself included.
I love you AJ, but I can’t handle this any more. Richard Simmons is here. He has a bed waiting for you at Richard Simmons and Dr. Drew Pinksy institute for the cupcaholic. Please. I don’t know if I stay around to watch you if you don’t go.
Yours Truly,
Eric
I think I gained 10 pounds just reading this.
I know it is hard to choose, but which one was your overall favorite?
I was planning on trying at least 6 cupcakes on my next trip. I thought I was being aggressive. I see now that I must up my game!
AJ – You’re my hero.
How ’bout a Brownie Crawl? Come on, who’s with me?!!! 🙂
°o°
Only 6 long months until I can indulge in the best cupcake in the World – the chocolate peanut butter cupcake at Starring Rolls Cafe. Just one can put me in a sugar coma. Mmmmmmmm cupcakes.
I would respond but I’m in a diabetic coma just from the pictures. Mmmm, peanut butter cupcake from Boardwalk.
I REALLY must stop reading these things late at night! *drooling*
I’ve tried several of the above listed cupcakes . . . they make a great breakfast if you are on the go! I’ll try to finish out the list soon! I’m looking at it like a marathon over several trips rather than a sprint!
There are definitely more cupcakes to add. Last time I was at Contempo Cafe in the Contemporary, they had three options, and I know Grand Floridian has pre-packaged cupcakes in different varieties as well.
My DD14 & I tried to do the challenge during our 8 day trip at the beginning of June and we failed. We had the white elephant (AK), the marble & red velvet (Starring Rolls), & chocolate caramel (Epcot). We were supposed to get the carrot cake at Roaring Forks but they were out. And on our 2nd return to Starring Rolls for the other 2 cupcakes, they had already closed. (FYI they close @ 4:00). As for the Boardwalk, I had a Dory moment & just completely forgot when we were there for dinner. A damper to our success was we were also on the DxDDP, so we weren’t even hungry for cupcakes. We carried them around, they’d get smashed a bit, then we’d eat then for a late night snack or breakfast. Her friends back home were jealous though! DD14 did enjoy the fact that I let her eat so much sugar. But why wasn’t Babycakes on the stop? Not that I would have remembered or had room to eat…
I think two extremely important cupcakes are missing from this list! The Contempo Cafe in the Contemporary Resort has the Devil’s Food (a mammoth chocolate confection stuffed with cherries) and the ever delightful Dulce de Leche cupcake (caramel, caramel, caramel)!!
Hey Sarah! I intentionally left those off the list (you can find them on the blog here and here), because I figured there was NO way to do that many cupcakes in one day 🙂 (Plus, I don’t like the frosting on them — to whipped creamy ;-D) That said, you’re more than welcome to add ’em to the crawl. I mentioned in a previous comment that I should do a MEGA crawl and add those two back in. (I actually had them written in, then took them out!)
I’m not going to attempt to do this in one day as we are not park hoppers and only do one park per day. But we will try to complete it during the week we’re there next month! We’re not doing Animal Kingdom at all but we will definitely come up with some substitutions! I’ve got all cupcakes and locations on my spreadsheet and I’m ready to roll!
One cupcake I love and you left out – the Black Forest cupcake at the Contempo Cafe at the Contemporary. They also have a delicious Strawberry Shortcake cupcake in season. I’ve had the butterfinger cupcake at Starring Rolls and was disappointed. This cupcake had been recommended to me by various sources and I was looking forward to trying it. We made a special trip over to WDW (108 miles each way) so we could get it and bring it home and try it in a non-park atmosphere for fairness (let’s face it – when you’re hot and tired and hungry, anything tastes good). We got home, opened the package – appearance, extremely appealing – A+. Cut the cupcake in half – again A+ in appearance. Took a small bite – taste was acceptable but was almost too sweet (and this from a chocoholic). Overall grade – B.
I’m late to the party on this posting, but this is awesome! Headed to the World in a few days so I’ll definitely be trying quite a few of these cupcakes.
A friend and I did the crawl during Marathon weekend. We started on Sunday with EPCOT and Boardwalk, then Monday hit Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Wilderness Lodge. Neither of us gained any weight from the experience, but that was probably due to the races (5K, 2 half marathons for her, half marathon and marathon for me)! It was awesome and I have found some new favorite foods at WDW!
Wowsers, Vicki!! Congrats on the runs and on completing the challenge! Thanks for the feedback! Do you have a favorite cupcake you discovered?
I will be taking this challenge on March 1st!! And doing it in ONE DAY!
Go, Kristal, Go!
There’s also a wonderful Chocolate Raspberry cupcake at Sunshine Seasons – YUMM!!
We’re going to try the cupcake crawl on our next trip – spreading it out over the whole trip and splitting the cupcakes – can’t wait! Thanks for the great idea!!
I think I’ll take on this challenge! Maybe!?
Do they no longer make the Boston Cream Pie Cupcake at Primetime in Hollywood Studios? I still think about that one!!
SamsHappyMom — You know, it goes on and off the menu, so it COULD be there when you are!