Cozy Cone Motel

June 15th is a big day for Disneyland and California Adventure because Matterhorn will FINALLY re-open after undergoing major rehab and Cars Land as well as the Carthay Circle Restaurant will both be making its official debut. I've already made two reservations for the Carthay Circle Restaurant so I can try both of their lunch and dinner menus. Countdown till June 16 and 23rd!! Another restaurant that I cannot wait to try is the Cozy Cone Motel, which is located in Cars Land.
According to the Disney blog, here are some of the dishes that will be featured on the menu:

Cone #1: Churro bites with cinnamon-chocolate sauce, regular or cinnamon-spiced hot cocoa, and Ramone’s Pear of Dice Soda (desert pear and mojito flavorings topped with Sprite).
Cone #2: Soft-serve ice cream and “route” beer floats.
Cone #3: Breakfast features the bacon scrambled egg cone and scrambled egg verde cone. Lunch and dinner is chili “cone” queso and a chicken verde cone. Sip one of Fillmore’s Fuelin’ Groovy Ades (all-natural lemonade with wild berry foam, or pomegranate limeade with lemon-lime foam).
Cone #4: Pretzel bites with cheesy sauce. To drink, Red’s Apple Freeze (100% frozen apple juice with Red’s special flavoring topped with a hint of toasted marshmallow flavor, and passion fruit-mango foam)
Cone #5: With two flavored popcorns daily, you might find salt and vinegar, pickle, bacon and cheddar, sweet and spicy or nacho cheese. Also serving Doc’s Wild Grape Tonic (Sprite with wild grape syrup and wild berry foam).


I think this one is cone # 1? Either way, it looks mighty tasty and I can't try all of the cone selections. 

Disneylandia

Random Disney Fun Fact for the Day

Despite the security systems installed in all Disneyland's attractions (and the monitors being watched by park employees hidden from view) couples will still try to have sex while on the "dark" rides (such as Pirates of the Caribbean or It's a Small World), apparently not realizing that the cameras are infrared and can pick up their every move. On occasion they are stopped with a warning over the speaker; other times, as they exit, they are met with applause from knowing cast members.

Chocolate Whiskey Cupcakes

When it comes to alcohol, I drink like a dude. I like to drink wine but I'm really into whiskey, scotch, and recently, gin and tonic. My friends often tease me about my alcohol choices because those three drinks are usually drunk by old men. And whenever I drink with them or tell them what I'm drinking, they jokingly say that all I'm missing is a red satin robe and a cigar. Har Har. Anyways, I'm sharing this story because this morning I made chocolate whiskey cupcakes. I've made cupcakes with whiskey before, like when I made Chocolate Whiskey and Beer cupcakes. And since those were pretty tasty, I decided to make another kind of whiskey cupcakes. I found this particular recipe on Annie's Eats, which is a super awesome blog btw. I followed the recipe pretty closely. The only change I made was that I used my own vanilla buttercream frosting instead of her Swiss meringue buttercream. I don't have anything against meringue. It's just that I suck at making meringue, so I opted for vanilla buttercream instead.

Chocolate Whiskey Cupcakes

by Annie's Eats

Normal Cupcake Size


Bite Sized

Cupcakes packed for the road for my usual group of taste testers =)

I left my brain at home today

Here's what happened:

I woke up at 4:50 am this morning to bake some cupcakes; chocolate whiskey cupcakes to be exact. I took pictures when I was done frosting, put my camera into my purse and lallie da'ed to work. I wrote my post and was about to upload my pictures when my camera cord was nowhere to be found in my purse. The horror right?! Stupid me uploaded pictures over the weekend and left the cord on the floor in the family room. So, now my original post is in draft and will stay that way until I get home tonight. Major bummer dude.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

A year ago, I stumbled upon a famous New York Time's Chocolate Chip Cookitie recipe. Many people claim that this recipe produces the best of its kind. Now, I really love chocolate chip cookies because I LOVE chocolate and I think it represents the ultimate cookie. However, I was hesitant to give this recipe a try because it requires the use of chocolate drops as opposed to the usual chocolate chips. Chocolate drops are different because they are much larger than standard chocolate chips and the chocolate itself is of a higher quality. This means it's much more expensive and are harder to find. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 lb of chocolate drops and an 8 oz bag costs $8.00. Ouch to my wallet. Another daunting requirement is to allow the dough to rest in the refrigerator for 24-36 hours. I usually don't plan on making cookies that far in advance, thus this isn't exactly your spur of the moment cookie recipe. However, after baking these cookies, I have learned two things: One, Ghirardelli chocolate chunks or chopping up a chocolate bar will work just fine as a substitute for the chocolate drops, and two, the 24-36 hour rest time is totally worth the wait. This was definitely the best chocolate chip cookies ever!
To view the recipe, check out Kirbie's Cravings blog. She tried out the recipe twice and offers other helpful tips and suggestions as well. Oh and btw, this is the actual size of the cookie. No zooming or anything. This baby was HUGE.

Beer Dinner

Tonight, my sister and I are heading over to Downtown Disney for a very exciting beer dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen. I think this will be my fourth time eating there? It's hands down one of my favorite restaurants and I'm super excited for this beer dinner. I would LOVE to go on some rides afterwards, but unfortunately she doesn't have an annual pass. Bummer. Speaking of which, Disneyland pulled a very shady move by increasing their prices by the bucket load. Last year, the premium annual pass (the highest level) was $500. Now it's $649! So much for it being the happiest place on earth. Not cool.

Coca Cola Cupcakes

So, I've had a bottle of Mexican Coke hanging out in my fridge for the past few months because I don't know what to do with it. I know the simple answer would be to just drink it or make a jack and coke with it. But the problem is that I'm not really a soda person because all the sugar in it makes my teeth hurt. My solution? Make coca cola cupcakes of course =).  I found an awesome recipe on Adrianna's blog, A Cozy Kitchen. I made a few changes along the way due to ingredient availabilities in my kitchen, but for the most part I really liked her recipe.

Coca Cola Cupcakes

from A Cozy Kitchen

Here are the following changes I made:

The recipe states to use 2 cups of coke. The bottle is only 12 oz so I substituted the remaining 4 oz with Jameson Whiskey. 

Also, I didn't have any unsweetened cocoa powder left, so I used cacao powder instead.

Finally, I made vanilla buttercream frosting instead of her whipped cream frosting.  

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting 

by me =)

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature

1 lb of powdered sugar

1 tsp of pure vanilla extract

3 tbsp of heavy whipping cream

Cream the butter in a mixing bowl until it's nice and fluffy. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Meanwhile, add the vanilla extract and heavy whipping cream. Continue mixing until the frosting is thick and whipped. 

This recipe makes a lot of cupcakes. I was able to make 24 cupcakes and had enough batter leftover for one more cupcake. Since I didn't have any cupcake pans left, I decided to pour the remaining batter into a mug and microwaved it for 1 minute and 30 seconds.  It worked out beautifully and made for a perfect snack while I was waiting for my cupcakes to bake in the oven.

When the cupcakes were ready, I frosted them and immediately gave one a try. It was delicious!

And then packed them all up to give away to my usual group of guinea pigs.

Sorry for the picture being so dark. The sun had not woken up yet.

Git in mah bellyyyyyyy!!!