Disney Dessert

Tasty Tuesday–The Official Disney Parks Cookbook

Summer vacation is coming to an end, which means I won’t have as much time for cooking “fancy” dinners. So even though I still have a lot of recipes left to try in The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, here’s a look at the ones we’ve tried so far. Unlike Delicious Disney: Walt Disney World, a cookbook of recipes from only Disney World which was the inspiration behind many of our Disney Dinners last year, this cookbook contains recipes from Disneyland, Disney California Adventure and beyond, Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and beyond, and other Disney locations including Vero Beach and Aulani.

  • Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes
  • Walt’s Chili and Beans
  • Shrimp Boil Tacos with Andouille Sausage and Corn
  • Honey Crunch Cake
  • Totchos
  • Tres Leches Cake
  • Key Lime Pie
  • Charred Nebraska Corn Chowder
  • Pork Goulash with Sauerkraut Pierogi
  • Caramel Hawaiian Sweet Bread Pudding
  • Chef Mickey’s Breakfast Pizza
  • Pink Leilani
  • S’mores Gelato Shake
  • Watermelon Lemonade
  • Goofy’s Kitchen Cherry Tomato and Bocconcini Salad
  • BLT Flatbread
  • Red, White, & Blue Sprinkle Whoopie Pies
  • Naan Bread with Cucumber Raita
  • Mango Lassi
  • Tomato Florentine Soup
  • Lemon Soda Float
  • The Hollywood Brown Derby Cobb Salad
  • Beef Sliders with Pimento Cheese
  • White Chocolate Peppermint Bar topped with Peppermint Meringue Kisses

I really love our Disney Dinners, and I’m really excited about the newest cookbook in this series, Delicious Disney: Disneyland, which comes out this fall!

Tasty Tuesday–Lilo and Stitch: The Official Cookbook

One of our cooking projects this summer has been making recipes from Lilo and Stitch: The Official Cookbook. There are still plenty of recipes we haven’t tried, but here’s a look at the ones we’ve made so far:

  • Kaua’i Sugarloaf Pineapple Salsa
  • ‘Ohana Fruit Salad
  • Blue Hawaiian
  • Dawn Patrol Loco Moco
  • Pā’ina Haupia Cake
  • Pleakley’s Pink Stuff Frosé
  • Braddah’s Baked Spaghetti
  • Luki’s Shaved Ice
  • The Green Flash
  • Easy-Kine Kālua Pork
  • Mahalo Hasagawa Matcha Brownies
  • Island Grilled Lemonade
  • Nani’s Spaghetti Salad
  • Comforting Butter Mochi
  • Gantu’s Galactic Brew
  • Black and Blue Seared ‘Ahi with Experimental Sweet Potato Mash
  • Guava Celebration Cake
  • Pudge’s Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Banana Sandwich
  • Rock-a-Hula Açai Bowls
  • Hapa Kine Strawberry and Basil Cooler Companions

We have definitely been introduced to some new flavors (guava was a huge favorite!), cooking techniques (I’ve never grilled lemons for lemonade before!), and even culinary science (butterfly pea tea has some very interesting properties!), through these recipes, which I love, and most of the recipes have been big hits!

Tasty Tuesday–Stitch Day!

Yesterday was a most anticipated day…it was Stitch Day!

In case you’re unfamiliar with this holiday, it’s a day in celebration of Experiment 626 (which is why it is celebrated on June 26), otherwise known as Stitch, of Lilo and Stitch fame. Last year, we just happened to be at the Magic Kingdom on Stitch Day, and it’s hard to top that, but Disney did just release Lilo & Stitch: The Official Cookbook last month, so I planned a special day of meals to celebrate our favorite alien-dog.

We started with ‘Ohana Fruit Salad, which had pineapple, lychees, pear, green apples, strawberries, and tangerines, and was tossed with coconut yogurt and served in a hollowed-out pineapple. It was really delicious!

Next was Kaua’i Sugarloaf Pineapple Salsa, served with plantain chips…I can’t wait to serve this with our next Mexican dinner, because it too was delicious!

Funny story about the drink I made…it’s called the Blue Hawaiian. Does it look blue to you? No matter how much of the blue vanilla syrup I added, I couldn’t get the pineapple and lemon juice based drink to change colors, not even to green! Even though the color wasn’t right, the drink itself was tropical and refreshing!

For dinner, I made Dawn Patrol Loco Moco. I’ve been wanting to try this Hawaiian dish of a hamburger patty served on rice and topped with gravy and a fried egg for a while, and we weren’t disappointed!

For dessert, we had the Pā’ina Haupia Cake, which had a lovely coconut filling. Bunny drew an outline of Stitch, and Ladybug copied it in royal icing to make the decoration for the top of the cake…they did a fantastic job!

We had a really fun time celebrating Stitch Day, and I can’t wait to try more recipes from the cookbook!

Star Wars Days

May the Fourth be with You! (But watch out for the Revenge of the Fifth!) We’ve had another fun two-day Star Wars Day(s) celebration. Most of the recipes we tried this year were new, starting with yesterday’s breakfast of Keshian Spice Bread from Star Wars: Galactic Baking (a new cookbook in our collection):

Dinner last night was a repeat (but so worth it)…I made Ronto Wrappers (flatbreads) from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook, and Batuuan Ronto Wraps from The Official Disney Parks Cookbook (just like we had at Disney World last summer and so delicious):

I also made the iconic Star Wars Blue Milk from a recipe on the Disney Food Blog…this one was pretty hit or miss, but it looked pretty!

Dessert was Hoth Cocoa Cream Puffs from Star Wars: Galactic Baking…they were amazing!

For dinner tonight, I made Nerf Kebabs from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook, and served Wawaatt Sprouts from The Life Day Cookbook with them:

I modified the recipe for Lothal Spicebrew from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook to make it non-alcoholic…it was much more popular than last night’s drink!

For dessert, I baked Sith Cookies from Star Wars: Galactic Baking. The were soft and delicious.

This has become one of my favorite bonus holiday celebrations, and I’m really excited that there’s another Star Wars cookbook coming out later this year, so we can try even more recipes!

Tasty Tuesday–Another Disney Dinner

Last year, I cooked a whole series of “Disney Dinners,” using Delicious Disney: Walt Disney World as one of my primary inspirations for Disney-themed meals and desserts. Well, Delicious Disney has a new offering this year…The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, so I’m back at it. Here’s a look at one of the first recipes I made from the book: Shrimp boil tacos with andouille sausage and corn from the On the Cob Marketplace stand at Disney California Adventure’s Food & Wine Festival:

No Disney Dinner is complete without a Disney Dessert, so Ladybug and I also made a Honey Crunch Cake from the California Grill at Disney’s Contemporary Resort:

Both of these recipes were amazing, and I’m looking forward to trying more recipes from the cookbook in the future!

Bobunk on Kirby Day

Last year, we celebrated Bobunk on Twosday, this year, we’re celebrating it on Kirby Day, because Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe was released on the Nintendo Switch today!

Ladybug made Kirby-inspired hot chocolate bombs, and today was the perfect chilly day to enjoy them!

I made the Kirby mocktail I invented last year…it looked really nice in our pink glasses!

For dinner, we did something new for Bobunk and got Super Gyros, which was delicious and made our house smell like Chicago:

For our Kirby Day dessert, I turned to the new Official Disney Parks Cookbook and made the Grand Californian’s Storytellers Cafe recipe for mini strawberry cheesecakes.

It was nice to have something fun to look forward to in the endless abyss that is February!

Nikolaustag

Happy Nikolaustag!

We started the day as we start every St. Nick’s Day…with stockings. The children always receive a new ornament, and this year, the ornaments came from our trip to Disney World. I had such a fun time picking them out at Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe the Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square back in June!

We always decorate the tree on December 6th…in addition to our Mickey Ears ornaments (and the final installation of the “12 Days of Christmas”), we also added an ornament made from marble from the steps of the US Capitol that we picked up when we toured the building over the summer:

For dinner, as I did last year, I made Döner Kebab. One more year, and it will be a full-fledged tradition!

For dessert, I stuck with the Disney theme and made Mini Gingerbread Bundt Cakes with Orange-Vanilla Sauce from a recipe on the Disney Parks Blog:

We always have wassail on Nikolaustag, too:

Now I feel like the Christmas season has really begun!

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Disney Dining

For the last few months, I’ve been sharing all of the Disney Dinners I’ve made…here’s a look at each dish we tried from either a Disney cookbook, or an online resource with copycat Disney recipes:

We also tried quite a few thing while we were at the Disney parks (my favorite was the Dole Whip!):

And we enjoyed one very special dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby:

This wraps our summer of fun Disney dinners, but I’m looking forward to trying (and retrying) recipes from our Disney cookbooks in the future, and I’ve already pre-ordered The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, which is scheduled to come out next February, so we’ll have even more new recipes to try!

Tasty Tuesday–The Twelfth Disney Dinner

For our final Disney Dinner of the summer, I didn’t use any of my cookbooks…instead I turned to the internet, where I first found a copycat recipe for violet lemonade like they serve at the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival, something we were able to attend on our trip. The drink had a lovely floral quality, and was such a pretty color!

The Disney Parks Blog had a recipe for Totchos as served at Woody’s Lunch Box in Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The recipe included a simple, thick chili as a topper, and while it wasn’t my famous three-meat chili, it is perfect for things like totchos, hot dogs, and baked potatoes, so I’ll probably make it again!

For dessert, we had classic but simple Mickey Mouse cupcakes with Oreo ears! I know I saw a picture of this idea online somewhere, but it’s not like you need a recipe to make it happen.

While we’ll continue making recipes from our Disney cookbooks (we’re already looking forward to getting The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, a companion volume to Delicious Disney, when it comes out next year!), there was something really special about this summer of Disney Dinners that I’m really going to miss!

Tasty Tuesday–The Eleventh Disney Diner

For our penultimate Disney Dinner of the summer, I turned to Delicious Disney for all three recipes. We started with the seasonal old fashioned from the Enchanted Rose Lounge. Yes, an old fashioned is by nature an alcoholic drink. But what my children were most interested in was the combination of fall flavors like cranberry and rosemary, so I substituted apple cider for the alcohol, which paired well with the other flavors in the drink.

For the main course, I made honey spicy crispy chicken from Nine Dragons Restaurant, a fine dining establishment in the China area of Epcot’s World Showcase. I don’t usually deep fry chicken, but I made an exception, and I’m glad I did, because this was one of the best recipes we tried all summer!

For dessert, I made Amorette’s recipe for pumpkin crème brûlée topped with sable cookies. This was kind of a disaster, because I dropped mine on the floor, breaking the ramekin in the process. I’m told it was good, though, and it kept with the “fall flavors” theme of the meal.

Stay tuned for our final summer Disney Dinner!