#DisneySide Celebration Party

I was so excited to be selected through Mom Select to host a Disney Side Celebration party.  I had my party a week ago and have been busy recovering and am now finally getting a chance to show you all how well it went.  I thought I would do this post a little different and show you the party and what we did first, and then below I will give details and pictures on the food.

There wasn’t really much that had to be done to get ready for the party.  The only thing I did to prepare was of course invite my neighbors over, and make Mickey Mouse themed food.  Since everything I needed to decorate was included in my kit we didn’t decorate until literally a half hour before the party started.

The Decorations:

We hung the Mickey Mouse foil streamers from the lights above the island.  S has begged and they are still up right now because he likes them so much.  On the chandelier we also hung more of the foil streamers.

We decorated the island with the plastic table cloth, napkins, plates, and cups.  The only other decoration needed was the food!

The Games and Party Favors:

Disney Bingo-I thought it would be fun to play Disney bingo with the adults and the kids together.  The winner of the game would win the iPhone cover that was included in the kit.  The kids had a fun time playing bingo and S was able to play with a little help from B.  Of course, Tee-Tee won the game and got a new cover for her phone.

Disney Trivia-I did a little twist to play the Disney trivia and when everyone got there they chose either the Mickey Mouse sticker or Donald Duck tattoo.  Although everyone did not know this was how the teams would be picked.  We didn’t play for any prizes on this, just good old fun and the Donald Duck team won.

Party Favors-Everyone who came even Baby A was sent home with a box of HP photo cards, a Mickey/Minnie Mouse poster, and Muppet calendars.

The Food:

I used the food as my main decorations for the party.  I got out my cupcake holder and displayed all of the cupcakes on it.  The cookies and brownies were displayed on a big red serving dish that I had.  I tried to create a symmetrical design with the cookies and the brownies were in the center.  I kept wondering how in the world am I going to display the cake pops.  I had three small buckets that would be perfect for them, but how do I get the cake pops to stand up in the buckets?  I asked B to check if we had any rice that was no longer good.  We did so we tried it in one bucket and it worked out well holding the suckers in place.  We didn’t have any more rice, but we sure did have a lot of popcorn seeds.  So the other two buckets I filled with popcorn seeds and they also held the suckers in place.  The last was easy.  I made a blackberry pie and in the top crust I cut out Mickey Mouse ears and then put them back in the crust.  It created nice vents and was easy to stick right on the counter with the rest of the desserts to finish it off.

I made a wide selection of treats all Mickey Mouse themed.  Everyone enjoyed eating the treats while we were playing the games and enjoying each other’s company.  S loved that it was actually okay for him to try all the treats no strings attached.  He has been helping me make all the food this past week and has not been able to eat any of it.

I loved hosting the #DisneySide Celebration and could not have been happier with the outcome.  I cannot believe that Disney sent all of this neat stuff to host a party just to celebrate Disney.  It really makes me want to take S to Disney World before the new baby comes, because I know it will be quite a while after the baby is born before I would even think of going to Disney World.  I cannot thank Disney enough for everything that was provided.

Details on the Food:

Making the Cookies:

1. The cookie cutters were provided in the kit from #DisneySide Celebration.
2. I am not one to make cookies from scratch especially sugar cookies, so I used two packs of sugar cookie mix to have enough dough for all of the cookies.
3. S was in charge of mixing up the dough for me.
4. I decided on making about 9 of each cookie shape.
5. With the hands I did a little something different and did 4 left hands and 4 right hands.  Not sure why, but I wasn’t 100% sure how I was going to display/decorate with the cookies and wanted to have the option.
6. With the star cookies I thought I would do just sprinkles on them and not frost them.  I don’t think everyone likes frosting and wanted a selection for everyone.  I simply brushed the cookies with water and dropped them into a container of sprinkles.  I then cooked the cookies with the sprinkles on them.  It did not affect the cooking of the cookies.
7. With the leftover dough I made more Mickey Mouse faces until I ran out of dough.  This is what I was able to make with the two cookie mixes.

Decoration the Cookies:

1. I went through an entire bag of M&Ms minies fun size bags to look for yellow M&Ms.  S informed me that Mickey’s buttons are white not yellow, but this is all I had.  I went through each and every bag and was only able to find just enough yellow M&Ms for the cookies. Some bags did not have any yellow and not one bag had more than four in it.   I guess yellow is not a popular color to eat.
2. I made a double batch of icing (consists of simple syrup, powdered sugar, almond extract, and milk).  I do not have a real recipe for the icing I started out with 2 cups of powdered sugar, 1 tsp. almond extract, and go from there adding the simple sugar and milk.
3. I want an icing that is thick enough to pipe an outline on the cookies, and not thin enough that it is going to run.  It needs to hold the runny icing.  I used a piping bag and tip #3.
4. The outline has to connect completely so the runny icing will not spill over the edge.
5. To get the runny icing I add more milk and a little simple syrup.  I mix it up and add it to a piping bag to make it easier to add to the cookies.  I just squeezed some frosting in each hand and then spread it out inside the outline.
6. With the Mickey Mouse, I dyed some of the white icing to make it red and outlined the bottom half of the cookie to resemble pants.
7. I added milk and simple syrup to my red icing to make it runnier so I could fill in the outline.  Once I added the icing, S helped me and added two M&Ms to each pair of pants.
8. I took the remaining white icing and colored it black.  I then outlined the top half of the cookie in black and made sure to include the part that touched the pants so I didn’t have any bleed over into the red pants.
9. I simply made the icing runny and filled in the face and ears of the cookies.  I think they look so cute and love how they turned out.

I did make sure that when I added the red and black dye that I did not add too much because I did not want to turn everyone’s mouth red and black.  The color does get more intense as it dries.  When I piped on the red it looked like a hot pink and turned red as it dried.  The black looked like a deep purple as I was piping but did turn to a nice black when dry.

Making the Brownies:

1. I was in the mood for brownies so B mixed a batch up for me and I baked them.
2. The next day I had the idea to cut Mickey Mouse heads out and potentially dip the bottom in red to decorate them.
3. I was able to cut out four of them before they started to stick to the cookie cutter and then I thought duh, use powdered sugar.  So I coated the cookie cutter in powdered sugar and they came out no problem.
4. I was only able to get seven Mickey Mouse heads out of the brownies, but I figured with everything else we were having that would be plenty and it was.
5. In the end, I decided not to decorate the brownies and leave them just how they were.  It was perfect.

Making the Cupcakes and Cake Pops:

1. S and I mixed up a batch of Funfetti cake mix.
2. We used the cupcake wrappers that were provided and overfilled the cupcakes so we would have really big cupcakes.  We cooked them according to the box directions.
3. We had a dozen cupcakes turn out perfect.  I could have made them smaller and gotten 18 cupcakes, but that was more than was needed for this party.
4. I did not want to make the cake pops that you crumble up cake and mix it with frosting.  While I love those cake pops they are just too rich to eat sometimes.  So I used one of the pans I got on clearance after Easter last year and made cake pops by simply filling the bottom half of the mold with cake mix, attaching the top of the mold and cooking them in the oven.  As long as both sides of the mold are greased well the cake pops will come out whole and not broken in half or stick to the mold.  I cooked them at 350° for 15 minutes.
5. After the cake pops cooked and cooled I was able to carefully get them out of the molds.  Half the battle is getting the top off of the mold and keeping the pops in tack.  I was successful in doing that, but a few of them did not make it out the other half without sticking to the pan.  I have found the easiest way to get them out is by twisting them to break them free of the mold.  S is only too happy when they stick because that means he gets to eat the cake right away and not wait.  If I could get six that came out good I would have been happy, but I got eleven of them.

Decorating the Cupcakes:

1. To decorate the cupcakes, I mixed up a batch of frosting (using shortening, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla and almond extract).  I decided on not coloring it because I thought the white would be just fine.
   1. I wanted some kind of Disney decoration for the top of the cupcakes so I melted a small amount of milk chocolate and put it in a sandwich baggy.  I simply made three circles one larger with two smaller ones for the ears.  I made about 20 of them and picked the best 12 for the cupcakes.  I stuck them in the fridge to harden.
   2. I used my 1G tip to give me a nice swirl on the top of the cupcakes.  I filled a frosting bag and used the big 1G tip.  I was able to give a nice swirl to each cupcake and topped it with a chocolate Mickey Mouse head.
   3. I picked a sprinkle out of my collection and covered all the cupcakes with a good amount of the sprinkles to give them some color.  I made sure to get sprinkles in the creases from the frosting to really ensure a good coating.

Decorating the Cake Pops:

Before I started making the cake pops I had to figure out what to use for the ears.  Since I was not forming my own cake pop balls and used a mold, the balls were a little smaller so regular size M&Ms would work for the ears.  I was lucky enough that B had not eaten all the M&Ms I bought him after V-day so we had M&Ms in the house to use.

1. I stuck all the cake pops in the fridge to get them cool so they would not crumble when I stuck the sucker sticks in the cake.  I decided it would be easier to dip the whole ball in red candy so I dipped the sticks in red and stuck them in the cake balls.  I then stuck them in the fridge for a few minutes to have the chocolate set.
2. I needed something to put the sticks in after they were dipped.  I used a gardening knee pad that I punctured holes in.  I have been using the same pad for years and it works great.  When the chocolate hardened around the sticks I got them out of the fridge and dipped the whole cake pop into a cup of melted red chocolate.
3. To get the M&Ms in I stuck a knife in to create slits for the M&Ms to stick.  It seemed to work out well and since the chocolate was still soft there was no need to dip the M&Ms before I stuck them in the cake pops.
4. After all of the cake pops were dipped in red chocolate and the ears were inserted, I melted some milk chocolate to coat the top half of the cake pop.
5. I simply stuck the cake pop in the chocolate to coat the top half of the cake pop.  I tried to do it so it was a straight line with the milk chocolate, but it didn’t really matter that much to me.
6. I tapped the stick on the side of the cup to get the excess chocolate off of the cake pop and to help create the definition around the ears.
7. I also kept turning the cake pops as I was tapping them to ensure an even coating all around.  It also helps to create a nice round cake pop.
8. Once all of the cake pops were done I stuck them back in the fridge so the chocolate could harden.
9. I got the cake pops out one more time to put on two white dots of white chocolate for the buttons on Mickey Mouse’s pants.

Once the chocolate was hardened in the fridge I was able to take them out of the stand and lay them in a container inside the fridge for the night.  They were perfect the next day when I opened the container to get the cake pops out.

Making the Blackberry Pie:

1.  I started out making the pie crust for the blackberry pie.  B, S, and I love this pie crust so instead of buying pie crust, I make it.  It is such an easy recipe to make.  The recipe will usually make 3 pie crusts for 9.5 in pie (3 c. sifted flour, 2 sticks cold butter, 1/3 c. ice cold water and 3 tbsp. sugar-mix together and refrigerate).  Separate the crust into three sections, form round disk and wrap separately.  I usually refrigerate the crust while I make the filling.
2. Pull one disk out and roll out to the desired size to fit your pie pan.  B likes really thin pie crust so I roll it out as thin as possible without it getting holes in it.  I drape it over the pie pan and cut off excess.  I then brush on the inside of the pie crust with one beaten egg.
3. I mixed up 3 heaping cups of blackberries with flour, sugar and cinnamon.  The instructions said to mix carefully trying not to smoosh any of the berries.
4. Line the bottom of the pie with a single layer of blackberries and then dump the remaining on top of the bottom layer.  It did not seem like nearly enough berries so I added two more containers (each container is the equivalent of 1 cup).
5. I dumped the remaining sugar/flour mixture on top of the berries.
6. It said to cut up a stick of butter (1/2 cup) and place the slices along the top of the pie before you put the top crust on.  I thought that was way too much butter and only used a half of stick (1/4 cup).  After I cooked the pie I think even that was too much butter and I should only have put maybe ¼ stick (1/8) cup of butter.

You put the top crust on, crimp the edges, trim the excess, and coat the crust in the remaining beaten egg.  Cover the crust edges with foil and cook at 350° for 50-60 min.

Decorating the Pie Crust:

Once the filling is in the pie pan, get another pie disk out of the fridge and roll it out to the desired length to cover the top of the pan.

1. Once the pie crust is rolled to the desired length, cut out the Mickey Mouse heads and remove the cut out.  Make sure to save the cutouts and not scrap them.
2. After all four cutouts are done, fold the pie crust and place it on top of the pie.  Crimp the edges with your fingers and trim off the excess.  I placed the Mickey Mouse cutouts back on the pie filling in the holes.  This created the vents needed to let out the steam while still being able to see the Mickey Mouse heads in the pie.  I also cut out an x in the middle of the crust to ensure that the head cutouts did not crack.  Brush the top of the pie crust with the remaining beaten egg; cover the edge of the pie with foil so it doesn’t burn and cook at 350° for 50-60 min.
3. Once the outside crust is a nice gold color and you can see the juices bubbling pull the pie out.  Mine took about 60 minutes to fully cook.
4. Let the pie cool and then refrigerate until ready to serve.

When this pie was cut the next day the crust had a nice crunch to it, but the juices from the blackberries was out of control.  I am used to a nice firm filling that does not have that much juice and when you pull a piece of the pie out it holds together.  The pie tasted great and everyone enjoyed it.  When we were ready to cover it up and put it back in the fridge we definitely had to dump the excess juice out so it did not soak the bottom pie crust.  Because I coated the bottom pie crust with a beaten egg the juice stayed within the pie and did not make the bottom crust soggy.  Next time I try to make this pie I will add more flour to the berry mixture so it thickens more.

Disclosure: I was not compensated for this review and received all the items at no cost courtesy of Disney Side Celebration.  All thoughts and opinions are all my own and a little of S and B.