Disney Food and Drinks

I was inspired by Kristine Fraser and decided I would also try making Disney World foods at home. Which is awesome because Disney foods but even more awesome because I rarely cook anymore…(I’m skipping the Dole Whip from her list, because that’s not an official recipe, I don’t care what anyone says. Dole Whip is vegan and that recipe isn’t vegan. Also, we have the official Dole Pineapple Frozen Yogurt mix which DOES make more realistic Dole Whip anyway.)

Well… here’s Kristine’s version (and the original) – Kristine’s look much better than the real thing. And speaking of the real thing, we want so much to like the Casey’s Corner corn dog nuggest + plastic cheese but we just don’t. They’re not good, though they are beloved by many.

I honestly didn’t have high hopes for this – deep frying is not my strong suit and deep frying with wet batter is REALLY not my strong suit. And, we have some weird really fine corn meal that is almost like a corn meal flour that didn’t work well for a recipe TW made with it. So… I was skeptical.

I continued to be skeptical as I started dipping the hot dogs (1 cut into a nugget size and one regular size hot dog) into the batter and then into the dutch oven of hot oil.

When they suggest using a jar for the batter, for easier dipping – that should not be a suggestion, it should be a requirement. Once I switched to a jar, things went along better.

BUT important note – the amount of milk in the recipe is NOT enough. I added and added and added and added…. (You know how when you make Jiffy Cornbread, you set the batter aside for a bit so it can thicken up… that’s what kept happening to my batter. It was so thick, I kept losing mini hotdogs in the batter, so I had to keep thinning it with milk.)

Also, the 2″ of oil was not enough or my dutch oven is too darn small (?) – it was really hard to get the whole hot dog into the oil, particularly for the full sized dog. The first few were weird as they really puffed up and didn’t get very browned.

After that… I found a rhythm and a method that worked and it was a success. TW’s mom definitely liked them. TW and I thought they were ok… they need more flavor of some sort but they were certainly as good as any corn dog nugget we’ve had at Casey’s Corner.

I don’t think I’d make these again – not without some changes to the recipe which would make this not the same recipe, eh? Or maybe I’d make them if a kid or a grandkid REALLY needed me to make them. Otherwise… naw, once was enough.

One of the best drinks on property (fight me!) is the Cava del Tequila avocado margarita. I used this recipe and OMG, so good. Important note about the hibiscus salt on the rim. My version (ordered from Amazon) was really coarse salt. The Cava del Tequila version is much finer. Use a finer ground, if possible. Oh… did I get avocado at the grocery yesterday? I think I did! I think another one of these is in my near future. My immediate future, actually. Because why the hell not?

The next two drink recipes are here – the frozen and the on the rocks versions of the Kungaloosh. The Kungaloosh cocktails are from the old Adventurer’s Club way back before Disney Springs became Disney Springs.

The frozen one in particular sounded good to me, so I grabbed some blackberry brandy while I was at the Navy base last month. It’s really pretty much a daiquiri with some blackberry brandy tossed in for a little extra something. It was good. I bought another bottle of daiquiri mix just so I could make this again and finish off that blackberry brandy.

Since I tried the frozen Kungaloosh, it seemed like I should try the on the rocks version, too. So I did. (Is this version still available at Trader Sam’s in Disneyland – or would it be if Trader Sam’s in Disneyland was currently open?) I didn’t have any Malibu so I used some other type of coconut rum that we have lying around (Never buying that stuff again. NEVER. NOT for any reason.)

This was one of the worst drinks on the planet. Possibly due to the horrible coconut rum. I dunno. TW refused to drink it. I added Tampico to it and drink half of it and tossed the rest out. NOT good.

The problem with the pandemic is that I don’t go into grocery stores so I am at the mercy of the grocery store employees who are choosing my order. Sometimes they give me good substitutions, sometimes they don’t even seem to bother trying. I asked for a bakery style loaf of sourdough…. because I need extra thick slices for this recipe for Tonga Toast, (basically it’s the Polynesian Resort version of a stuffed french toast.) Instead, I got a loaf of regular old sliced sourdough. What to do, what to do…

I pondered taking my french bread (unsliced) that is for another meal and using that because I’d be able to cut those slices really large. But, that would leave me a meal short for the week and I just couldn’t wrap my head around a menu change so… I made something up.

I used two slices of the sourdough, put sliced banana in between each, used my hands to dip the whole “sandwich” into the egg mixture, used a big slotted spoon/spatula thing to gently lower the sandwich into the hot oil, used that spoon thingy and another smaller spatula to slowly turn the sandwich over so it could fry the other side and…

WINNER!

I even made the strawberry compote though I made that up too. I used 1/3 of a bag of Schwan’s frozen strawberry/banana mix instead of fresh strawberries.

TW’s mom LOVED it. But TW and I agreed that because the “toast” was not as thick as real Tonga Toast, it was just a LITTLE sweeter than it should have been. TW said a three slice sandwich would have been perfect. She’s right but that would be very hard to manage in the pot of oil. I just really need that whole loaf of sourdough, darn it.

I was inspired by Kristine Fraser and decided I would also try making Disney World foods at home. Which is awesome because Disney foods but even more awesome because I rarely cook anymore…(I’m skipping the Dole Whip from her list, because that’s not an official recipe, I don’t care what anyone says. Dole Whip is vegan and that recipe isn’t vegan. Also, we have the official Dole Pineapple Frozen Yogurt mix which DOES make more realistic Dole Whip anyway.)

(Oops, forgot that Kristine had done this one. You can see her version here.)

You win some and you lose some. Should have quit while you were ahead.

Both ring true when I think back to that fateful day when I decided to make the O’hana Breakfast Bread in the morning and then make the O’hana Bread Pudding (using that Breakfast Bread) at night.

I read a lot of recipes and blog posts about the recipes. I watched several videos (much to TW’s annoyance.) I was fairly confident that if I could get the bread right, then the bread pudding would follow along nicely. That was my theory.

Let’s start, as one should start, at the beginning. The O’hana Breakfast Bread. I ended up with this recipe, (sorry – it’s all the way at the bottom of the page), except I added a light glaze on the top because that bread DOES have a glaze.

I actually made the pineapple coconut filling the night before and left it in the refrigerator. And either I’m really good at draining a can of pineapple or that extra time solved a problem that most people have with their pineapple mixture being super wet and runny and messy. Mine was thick and fabulous. Not a runny, drippy mess.

This recipe – it turned out pretty much perfect and as close to the real thing as I think you can get.

Winning. Super easy.

Then came the O’hana Bread Pudding. I went with this version of the recipe. I followed it to the letter except, I did not flambe’.

It was a catastrophe.

When my bread came out of the oven, it still felt kind of wet and gooey. I should have toasted it longer. Or made this after the bread was less fresh, I think. It did soak up the custard mixture nicely and the custard set pretty well but the darn thing never REALLY came together. Which might have been ok because chunks of bread alongside custard could taste ok… but there were bigger issues.

Just as I poured the rum into the bananas foster, I realized the top of the bread pudding was getting way too dark so I reached down to pull it out and cover it and… I tipped the handle of the pan and boozy hot caramely goo went all OVER my stove and floor and missed the dog and my foot by about 1/2″. I shut off the heat, shut off the oven because burning bread pudding… cleaned the bottom of the gooey pan, shifted to a different burner, covered the bread pudding with foil, brought the damn bananas back to boil and…

I apparently forgot to turn the oven back on.

And, the bananas foster never did thicken up again.

We attempted to eat it – with ice cream and without – it was TOO sweet. That was the biggest problem, really. We possibly could have eaten it if it just had not been that sweet.

I thought I might salvage half the bowl by warming it the next day and not adding bananas foster… but Buster had other ideas and found a way to pull the rest of the bowl onto the floor. He didn’t have any trouble wolfing it down before I got to it. No accounting for taste.

Did I mention I don’t LIKE bread pudding – even when it’s a good bread pudding?

Whatever. Hmph.