Jul 2 2014

Disney Frozen Cupcakes

This week my boys and I thought it would be fun to invite Grandma and Grandpa over to watch Frozen, because we’re pretty sure they were the only two people left on the planet that hadn’t seen it yet! My boys and I scoured the internet for a fun treat to have after we watched the film. We came across this amazing website GloriousTreats that happened to have a snowflake cupcake recipe. It looked a little complicated, but we decided we were up for the challenge!

First, we went to Michaels to get the decorations. We purchased Wilton disposable cake decorating bags, silver sugar sprinkles, white pearl sprinkles, silver cupcake cups and Wilton meringue powder. Next, we went to Target to get a Betty Crocker chocolate fudge cake mix, Betty Crocker fluffy white whipped frosting, powdered sugar, parchment paper and food coloring. We already had the necessary eggs and oil at home. Once we arrived home with all of our ingredients, we were ready to get started.

One thing that makes these cupcakes a little more difficult than standard cupcakes is the snowflakes. We needed to make a special decorator frosting, pipe the snowflakes onto parchment paper using a disposable cake decorating bag, let them sit for about 24 hours to dry and gently remove them from the parchment paper. To make the decorator frosting we used:

2 TBSP meringue powder
2 cups powdered sugar
3 TBSP warm water

Then we beat the ingredients together with a mixer until the frosting formed stiff peaks. Next we scooped the frosting into a disposable decorating bag. The directions said to use a size 1 decorating tip to pipe the snowflakes onto the parchment paper, which I tried, but it didn’t really seem to work very well for me. I ended up moving the frosting to a new bag, cutting a tiny bit off the decorating end and going without a tip. That worked so much better! You want to be sure that you pipe the frosting thick enough that it isn’t so delicate that it completely falls apart when you try to remove it from the parchment paper, but not so thick that it takes forever to dry. Definitely make a few extras just in case you break some.

My boys were troopers and waited the 24 hours before we finished making the cupcakes. The next day we baked the chocolate cupcakes according to the package directions. Once they were cooled, we frosted them with the fluffy white frosting tinted a light blue with food coloring and then decorated them with the two kinds of sprinkles and our fancy homemade snowflakes.

I am happy to report that Frozen and the cupcakes were a big hit with Grandma and Grandpa!

What about you? Do you have a favorite Frozen inspired treat? Please leave a comment!

Jun 30 2014

Daily Dose Of Disney – Mickey Mouse Sundae

Did you know that you can make this cute Mickey Mouse Sundae like the one served at Disney’s Beach Club’s Beaches and Cream Soda Shop with only a scoop of ice cream, two Oreos, two chocolate chips and one maraschino cherry? How cute is this?

Jun 23 2014

Disney World’s Jungle Juice

After recently returning from our amazing trip to Disney World, we were missing it so much we decided to make a little Disney magic here at home. This weekend, we set off on a mission to find the ingredients to make one of our favorite Disney World beverages; Jungle Juice.

For those of you not familiar with this tasty concoction, you can typically find it served at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and at several locations throughout the Animal Kingdom Park. On our most recent vacation, we were pleasantly surprised to find they were even serving it at ‘Ohana at the Polynesian Resort!

While dining on a yummy Boma breakfast, we confirmed with our server Amin, what goes into the Jungle Juice. He told us that it has changed throughout the years, but the current formula is equal parts orange juice, passion fruit juice and guava juice.

Living in one of the least tropical places around (the beautiful state of Colorado), we knew it might be a challenge to find these juices. In spite of this, we needed our Disney fix, so challenge accepted!

We checked the fridge and found that we already had a full bottle of orange juice, so we were already a third of the way to our goal!

Next, we headed off to Target. We needed to go there anyway to get some Super Soakers (it is summer after all), so we thought we would check out their juice selection. We were amazed to easily find the guava juice. Two down, just one juice to go!

The passion fruit juice proved to be the most difficult. After trying Sprouts with no luck, we decided it was time for a Google search. And what did we find? The all-knowing Google told us that the elusive passion fruit juice could be found in the exotic place called Wal-Mart. So off we went and sure enough in a matter of minutes, we had secured all of our ingredients.

As soon as we got home, my hubby quickly mixed it up for us. We were thrilled to find that it tasted just like the real thing! A little taste of Disney right here at home whenever we need it!

What about you? Do you love Jungle Juice as much as we do? Please leave a comment!

May 15 2014

Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

My family and I had a great Mother’s Day last weekend! Here are the cute Mickey Mouse cupcakes that I made for our Disney Side Mother’s Day celebration. They were super simple…just a chocolate cake mix, canned frosting and mini Oreos. Yummy! I could go for one of these right now! Anyone else hungry?

May 9 2014

Mother’s Day Disney Side Celebration

Me and Mom at the Magic Kingdom in 1974

Every year my Mom and I have a difficult time deciding how to celebrate Mother’s Day for a couple of reasons. First, my birthday is at the end of April and my Mom’s is at the beginning of May, so we’ve just had two big celebrations. And second, where we live in the US, we have no idea what the weather is going to be like this time of year. We could have anything from a sunny 80 degree day to freezing cold temperatures with several inches of snow falling! Looks like we’ll be getting the snow this time (ugh!).

So this year, we had the awesome idea to have a Disney Side Celebration in honor of Mother’s Day! We have two Disney World vacations coming up in the next few months that we are busy planning, so this get-together will just add to our excitement and anticipation! Since we have a big snow storm coming in very late Saturday night, we’ve scheduled our gathering for Saturday afternoon and early evening.

Here’s what we have on the agenda:

Disney Themed Dinner
Open Gifts
Disney Photos & Movies
Disney Themed Games

For dinner, my sweet hubby is going to help with the cooking by grilling some burgers. Grilled burgers are one of my favorite meals and I’m so glad we are going to be able to sneak this in before the snow begins!

Here’s my recipe for the best All-American Grilled Hamburgers:

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon black pepper

You just mix up all of the ingredients, form into six patties and grill them to your liking. Delicious!!

We are going to keep the side dishes fairly simple. It is Mother’s Day after all, so we want to relax and enjoy it. My Mom is bringing a salad with some cleverly arranged “hidden mickey” veggies and we’ll be serving up a variety of chips in bowls strategically arranged like Mickey’s head.

And for the best part of any meal, dessert, we are going to have a couple of different things. My Mom is making Mickey shaped mini cherry pies and I’m making some super chocolatey Mickey Mouse cupcakes. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!

After dinner, my Mom is going to open her gifts. Since she reads my blog, all I’m going to say is that her gifts and their wrappings fit with the Disney Side Celebration theme. (Sorry Mom, no hints for you!)

Once my Mom has opened her gifts, we are going to look through old photos of past Disney World vacations and watch the latest Disney World vacation planning DVD. As many times and we have been there, it is still fun to watch the planning DVD. It really gets us excited for the next trip!

Last up for the night are Disney themed games. Our entire family has always loved playing games and we actually have game nights quite often. I’ve already got Disney Uno and Disney Monopoly out and ready to go!

I’m really looking forward to our Mother’s Day Disney Side Celebration tomorrow! Happy Mother’s Day Weekend, everyone!

Do you have plans for a Disney Side Celebration this year? Please leave a comment!