A Favorite Disney Sweet to Make at Home

One of my favorite places to visit in EPCOT is the Germany pavilion.  In this pavilion sits a small little shop called the Karamell-Kuche. The smell as you enter this little shop is caramel, delicious buttery caramel, Werther's Original caramel.  They have more items that are covered in caramel, and sometimes chocolate, than you can imagine.  There are apples, strawberries, pretzels, cookies, cheesecake and fudge.  Oh, a diabetic could go into sugar-shock just looking into the cases!

There is a portion of one wall that offers nearly every type of Werther's candies.

But my favorite item in the Karamell Kuche is their chocolate drizzled caramel corn.  And I make sure that I bring at least one bag home from each trip.  I've often wanted to try my hand at making this tasty snack here at home, but have never been brave enough.  I have a really easy recipe for Microwave Caramel Corn that I have made for years but I've never tried to drizzle it with chocolate. Today I decided to search Pinterest for a recipe.  Now, let me tell you that the only thing I love more than chocolate drizzled popcorn is chocolate and peanut butter combined.  You know - Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Reese's Pieces, and chocolate peanut butter milkshakes. There's just soething about the chocolate - peanut butter combination that makes me happy.  So today when I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Caramel Corn that is drizzled with chocolate, I thought I'd found paradise! My recipe is made in the microwave, and the one I found is cooked on the stove. I think I'll try it in the microwave also.  What special treats do you make for Christmas?

Gingerbread

Do you remember the story about the Gingerbread Man. You know, run run run as fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.  I loved that story, and it may have something to do with my addiction to all things gingerbread.  My granny used to make gingerbread cut out cookies that were (as she put it) "hard as Billy be Damned."  She cut them out in all different shapes at Christmas and rolled them out with the rolling pin and bread board that I was lucky enough to inherit.  My favorite way to eat Granny's gingerbread cookies was to break them up and put them in a bowl of hot, creamy oatmeal.  

If you have never been to Walt Disney World during the holiday season, you don't know what you are missing.  Housed in the lobby of the Grand Floridian resort is a magnificent gingerbread house.  According to Disney, this year’s gingerbread house is made up of 1,050 pounds of honey, 140 pints of egg whites, 600 pounds of powdered sugar, 700 pounds of chocolate, 800 pounds of flour, 35 pounds of spices, and tons of creativity paired with Disney magic and pixie dust.  It is one of my favorite places to visit during the holidays.  The scent of gingerbread greets you as you walk into the lobby.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!  The house is a store, there is a window on one side of the house where you can buy gingerbread shingles.  It's a soft gingerbread, and they are coated on the back with chocolate.  I was so excited to learn that this year, they would begin to sell the gingerbread during our trip.  The night we went to the Grand Floridian to buy our gingerbread, I decided to be a "good girl" and buy the sugar free that they showed was available.  They put it into a bag, and I gave it a hug while Rod paid the bill.  You can imagine my disappointment when I got home, opened the bag, and discovered that what they had given me was not gingerbread, but sugar free shortbread.  How could this be??  How could I have missed out on the best gingerbread that I've ever tasted??  I was feeling like I had failed my quest for Disney gingerbread.

But today, I was so excited to see that The Mouse for Less blog had posted the recipe for the Grand Floridian gingerbread.  I had purchased a Mickey Mouse gingerbread cookie cutter with a mix while I was in the park this year, but you can find it here, and you can buy just the cutter.  Guess who plans on making some Mickey gingerbread men - yep ME.

Trip Report on the Magic Scale

I am back from Disney and Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Thought I'd tell you a little bit about our Disney trip.

Most people feel that Disney is "magical", and most times, I would agree.  But some trips are more magical than others.  Such was our trip this year. We stayed at Coronado Springs for the first time.  It is a large resort and very spread out.  Our family had reserved 4 rooms and had requested that we be close to each other.  When we checked in, three rooms were side by side, and the other was in a totally different section - quite a distance from the other three. Two days into our trip, when the temperature dropped into the 40's, the heat in one room didn't work, and so that room was moved into still another section.  On the Magic Scale, we rated this a 5.

When you travel to Florida from cold Pennsylvania, you expect the sun and warm temperatures.  However, for our trip we had cold temps and rain for all but two days.  On the Magic Scale, we rated the weather a 3.

We had booked our trip to include free dining.  Because it was the first trip for two of the grandkids, we booked several buffets that included characters, and one of our favorite non-character buffets, Boma.  What we all agreed was that the buffets had gone downhill.  I don't know if it was the free dining (we've been there before on free-dining and not had any complaints), but we were very disappointed in the buffets.  There were fewer options on each buffet, and the quality was not what we have been accustomed to.  The prime rib was very fatty and tasteless.  The turkey was dry, and most items were very spicy.  Rod and I had a great meal at the Biergarten, which was a buffet.  We also had a great sit down meal at the Captain's Grille and at Be Our Guest.  I chose several sugar-free desserts, which I found to be delicious.  On the Magic Scale, we rated meals at a 6.

The Lion King show in it's new venue was fantastic.  We saw a Turtle Talk with Crush show that we had never seen before, and enjoyed it. All of our counter service meals were delicious, and we may do Quick Service Dining, if we go back in a few years.

We hated the new FastPass system.  We had been told that this week would be a low crowds week, but the wait times for rides was well over an hour on many rides (if you didn't have a fast pass).  Needless to say, I was glad to come back home, and I am a little Disneyed out.

Now, bring on Christmas!