Gluten Free and Sugar Free Cookies at Disney World

Just wanted to quickly share this great news. Minnie’s Bake Shop, a new line of baked goods being sold at Disney parks stores, is now selling family-size packages of Gluten Free and Sugar Free cookies.

Minnie's Bake Shop Gluten Free and Sugar Free Cookies

This is in addition to some freshly-baked gluten free and sugar free items I found for sale at several bakeries (including the Marketplace in Disney’s Beach Club Resort) throughout the Disney World parks.

Disney parks have long been ahead of the curve in anticipating guests’ needs, and ensuring a wealth of gluten-free and sugar-free options is just the beginning.

Stay tuned for an upcoming Disney Food Blog post all about dining gluten-free in Disney World, but in the meantime, check out these great resources. If you have a special diet and are planning a trip to Disney World, contact [email protected], or 407-824-5967, to have a Disney specialist plan delicious menus for you based on your needs and preferences.

Foodie Fun at Disney World’s Flower and Garden Festival

By AJ 1 Comment

F&Glogo

The official Epcot Flower and Garden Festival guide just came out describing all the adventures and attractions you can experience this year at Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival! There are a few highlights for us foodies, too! All of the events listed below are free with Epcot admission, except for the Garden Town Breakfast.

The Festival runs this year from March 3rd through May 16th, 2010, and includes some great opportunities for Disney fans, even if you don’t exactly have a green thumb.

F&Gapple Garden Town Breakfast
10:30 am – 12:30 pm, March 21, April 18 & May 16
Enjoy a welcome breakfast prepared by our chefs that will include a special selection of fresh ingredients from our own Land Pavilion while having the opportunity to learn some garden and culinary techniques from [Read more…]

Guest Review: Cinderella’s Royal Table

By AJ 52 Comments

Thanks to Chip and Co. for this guest review of Cindy’s! As it turned out, his family didn’t love the place; but there are some great insights here as a result. Thanks again, Chip!
Cinderella's Royal Table

On paper, this sounded like a great idea. I mean who wouldn’t want to have dinner inside the castle at Walt Disney World?

“Let’s have dinner in Cinderella’s Castle.”
“That sounds great. It will be so magical!”
“It will cost us 2 dining credits each.”
“Well I am sure it will be really good, then.”

I can still hear the conversation with my wife ringing in my head. [Read more…]

“You Won’t Believe This!” Snack — Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake

By AJ 40 Comments

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake Disney

Woo! We’re back with another “You Won’t Believe This!” snack from Starring Rolls Cafe in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Of course you remember the Butterfinger Cupcake, which had more frosting than most birthday cakes. Well this Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake rivals, and might even top [Read more…]

Dinner:Impossible Meal at Walt Disney World!

By AJ 41 Comments

Dinner:Impossible Production Sign

After walking out of the Disney “Give A Day, Get A Disney Day” announcement event on Thursday, I saw none other than Chef Robert Irvine running through World Showcase with a team of volunteers behind him! I quickly realized that he was taping Dinner:Impossible! for the Food Network…and that I was going to be attending that dinner!

Scroll to the bottom of the page to read more about the “Give A Day” program and how you can be a part of it; in the meantime, let’s get on to the food…

Chef Irvine Plots With His Volunteers

Dinner Prep
Chef Irvine and his volunteers were preceded around the the World Showcase by an advance team who were tasked with finding the next individual the Chef would be speaking with, and setting up the shot. For instance, in Epcot’s Germany pavilion, the advance team set up a shot where Chef Irvine learned from Snow White what one of his main ingredients would be!

From there, the Chef and his volunteers took off running again — after all, he only had a few hours to cook dinner for hundreds.

Dinner:Impossible Advance Team

Chef Irvine and Team Run to the Next Shot

For the hours of cooking Chef Irvine and his trusted sous chefs were about to endure, Disney had set up a show kitchen in front of World Showcase. Guests to the Epcot theme park were welcomed to watch as the show taping started heating up! I hung around for a good chunk of the day, snapping photos and trying to figure out what my meal was going to include. All I could figure out was that we were going to be eating a lot of apples…

One interesting thing I noticed is that the proceedings in the kitchen were pretty quiet. Lots of chopping, and seasoning, and sauteing in a giant wok being heated over a…garbage can, but no yelling. No angry Chef Irvine shouting in frustration that there are only 3 dishes done with only 20 minutes left. Maybe there was another kitchen somewhere where those things were happening. It’s not a Dinner:Impossible! show without them! My fingers are crossed that somebody got angry somewhere, or it might not be worth watching. 😉

Dinner Impossible Waiver

Chef Irvine Instructs a Sous Chef in the Show Kitchen

The Dinner
After much running around by Chef Irvine and his sous chefs, it was finally time for those at the event to start digging in! Now, here’s the saddest part of my story — I’m pretty sure I didn’t get to eat Chef Irvine’s cooking. Word is that his handiwork was served only to the Give a Day Get a Day volunteers, who’d won trips to Disney World to celebrate their donations.

Alas, I’m still going to tell you all about the dinner WE, as members of the media, were served, because it was still delicious — thanks, Disney!

The event was held outside — on the bridge between the Fountain of Nations in Future World and the World Showcase Lagoon, and there were several stations set up where guests could collect appetizer-sized portions of the dishes.

Servers were also circulating with many of the dishes — primarily desserts — in case you couldn’t break away from a conversation to get over to the main serving areas. There were quite a few tables set up within the event space, along with cocktail tables bearing [Read more…]

Disney Food Post Round-Up: February 14, 2010

By AJ 2 Comments

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wow! What a week! Two days at Disney World can be exhausting! Here are a few links to some news and info reports from the World this week:

Cinderella and princesses now attending dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table
The foodie side of the Mega-Canned-Food-Sculpture in Walt Disney World this week

Stay tuned for more stories this week from my trip to Disney World! Now, on to the round-up!

Disney Geek reports that corn dogs are on the menu at Disneyland’s Stage Door Cafe while the Corn Dog Castle is closed for refurb through 2011.

@Marcomboy, via twitter, shared some Valentine’s Day Desserts at Disneyland’s Storytellers Cafe. In the photo: Red Velvet Mini cupcake, Snickers cheesecake, and flourless chocolate cake. Also available are a heart-shaped chocolate raspberry tart and a heart shaped strawberry mousse.

Disney Family.com has some great Alice in Wonderland ideas! Check out these edible teacups, this smiling Cheshire Cat cupcake, and this cool make-it-yourself Alice cupcake topper!

The Red Carpet takes us along with her as she dines at Disneyland’s Club 33!

Main Street Gazette shares a memory of an extinct restaurant, the Polynesian’s Papeete Bay Verandah, along with one of its lost recipes: Chicken Toa Nue.

DisneyShawn shows us the detail of Pinocchio’s Village Haus.

A World View shares a review of Cat Cora’s Kouzzina.

Disney Parks Blog shares their top WDW Romantic Restaurants. (You can also check out the DisneyFoodBlog top three romantic restaurants in Disney World, based on our reader survey!)

Chip and Co shows us how to do a DIY breakfast from the Kona Cafe!

Cinderella and Princesses Now Appearing at Fairytale Dinner

By AJ 2 Comments

Cinderella Poses at a Character Breakfast

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Cinderella’s Royal Table will add princesses to their character line-up for dinner!

Now, guests usually can expect to see Snow White, Jasmine, Aurora and Belle during breakfast, lunch and dinner. The royal beauties stop by each table to chat, pose for photos and sign autographs.

For years, Cinderella only visited the restaurant for breakfast. Now, your little princes and princesses will be able to see her — and her royal friends — at dinner as well! Get your dialing fingers ready, though; you’ll need to call or book online 180 days in advance to get an Advanced Dining Reservation for this hot ticket character meal!

A Foodie Hidden Mickey

By AJ 4 Comments

Usually don’t post on Saturdays, but I had to share this (as I’m sitting in the Orlando airport, delayed for 3 hours…). I was at my favorite cupcake place, Starring Rolls Cafe in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, this morning for a snack. Guess what I found while doing my “research” for the Disney Food Blog…?

Cupcake Hidden Mickey

Have a GREAT weekend!

Disney Canned Goods Sculpture — A Breakdown

By AJ 6 Comments

So, being the person I am and writing the blog I write, it’s natural that I hung around after the canned goods sculpture reveal at the Disney “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” press event and took a few photos… 🙂 The world record-setting sculpture (yep — Guinness World Records authenticated it) was made up of 115,527 canned goods. The canned goods were donated to food banks in Orlando, Fla., Miami, and Atlanta.

This was part of a massive media event promoting what I believe to be one of the most game-changing Corporate/Non-Profit partnerships in the history of philanthropy. Disney’s “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” volunteer program aims to encourage 1 million people to volunteer one day of service at a local nonprofit in exchange for one free day in a Disney park. Why is this game-changing? Because that 1 million people includes thousands of children, who will learn why it’s important to volunteer and help out in the community — and I don’t mean just getting a ticket to Disney World. This program will introduce thousands of people to the outstanding benefits volunteering can bring — both personally and to the community.

To date, Disney’s already hit the 600,000 person mark…and that’s in just six weeks. I’m guessing they’ll hit their 1 million person goal in no time flat.

But on to the Sculpture…
One thing I really wanted to capture was how many different types of items were used to create the sculpture, as well as the innovation of the “artists!” According to a Disney press release,

The sculpture contains approximately 44 tons of food – everything from albacore tuna and apricot halves to spaghetti, stewed tomatoes and mixed vegetables – destined to become more than 70,000 meals for the needy.

Let’s begin with a photo of the full sculpture. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to see a cool time-lapse video of the sculpture being built!!:

NEW WORLD RECORD SET AT DISNEY

Here are a few breakdown photos that I thought were pretty interesting uses of canned, bagged, and boxed foods:

Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse was made up primarily of flesh-toned Kirkland Salmon cans. Black olive cans were used for his ears and nose, and pineapple chunk cans made up his eyes. All of the characters had popcorn plates for pupils!

Mickey’s paintbrush was made out of boxes of lasagna noodles, bags of spaghetti, and [Read more…]

My Disney Food Day: In Pictures

By AJ 12 Comments

I’ve had a busy and rewarding day at the Walt Disney World “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” media event; and while you’ll be seeing in-depth blogs over the next few days about my adventures, I wanted to share with you as soon as possible a few of my favorite Disney photos from today.

So, come along with me on this mini-photo-trip-report!

My Disney Day in Photos
First, we got up early-early-early to head over to Epcot for our Akershus breakfast with the Princesses. I think this is just about the most true-to-“life” Snow White I’ve ever seen:

Snow White at Akershus Restaurant

Then it was off to the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” Media Event, but what do I see as I’m walking around World Showcase? Giant tin cans!! These were used throughout Epcot today as themeing for the Volunteer Events! This one indicated that a VERY cool Detroit radio station would be broadcasting live from Epcot today! (Shout out to Jake Edwards!)

Detroit 96.3 Radio Station Broadcast Location Marker

Finally made it around the Showcase in time for the big World Record reveal and Media Event. This is the World’s Largest Sculpture Made of Canned Goods! Be sure to check out our breakdown of the foods used for each character!

Canned Goods Sculpture Reveal at Disney World

And of course I needed to get Pluto’s picture in front of his canned-good likeness!

Disney's Pluto with Canned Goods Pluto

I was thrilled to see that Mickey’s fingers were made out of huge-mongo bags of [Read more…]

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