New “Disney Princess Tea Party” Cookbook Packs Flavor, Fun
A rainy, cool day set in here in the Midwest today, providing a perfect day to stay inside and experiment with recipes in Insight Editions’ latest cookbook, Disney Princess Tea Parties authored by Sarah Walker Caron. The new work presents a range of delicious recipes from sweet to savory and from simple to complex.
For today’s tea party, I charged my two aspiring culinary experts-to-be with cooking up a tea party fit for a drizzly day that transports us to “the most magical place on Earth,” and they did not disappoint. For the party, they chose five different recipes from the cookbook with only one request: We needed to have the ingredients on hand.
Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather Fruit Wands
Of all of their tasty creations, the Flora, Fauna and Merryweather Fruit Wands presented the largest knife skills challenge for the under-12 crowd. With a little assist, they perfectly sliced the watermelon into thick enough slices to cut out the wand’s signature star pieces.
Of course, the wands embrace Flora and Merryweather’s debate over whether Sleeping Beauty’s dress should be pink or blue. Here, a sprinkle of mint gives a hint of green, symbolic of the less opinionated fairy, Fauna. The mint also brightened up the darling snack!
Sandwiches and Sweets Round Out Tea Party
Embracing all things golden yellow, the Golden Sun Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches play with the color and symbols associated with Rapunzel and her forever-flowing golden hair. The cookbook uses a sun cut-out for these, symbolizing the same flower that first gave Rapunzel’s locks their magical qualities. (We subbed with the star due to mom’s one requirement.)
For the beverage, the kids whipped up a batch of Mulan Iced Orange Green Tea, which was a huge hit. With a bunch of orange juice and honey, the earthy qualities of the green tea balanced well.
An Evening Star Avocado Grilled Cheese brought a clever nod to hard-working Tiana to the table. According to the cookbook, Tiana’s firefly sidekick Ray provided the inspiration for this dish. Delightfully, the star-shaped cutout celebrates Ray’s love, Evangeline, who happens to be the Evening Star that the group wishes on at night.
Rounding out the party and offering the sweetest treat of all, the little chefs finished off the meal with Moana Toasted Coconut-Banana Toast. In this recipe, a delicious mixture of carmelized bananas sat on top of nut buttered toast and swept us away to Montunui with a topping of tropical coconut.
Modern Tea Party Celebrates Disney Princesses
With a table setting full of Hidden Mickeys, the day certainly transported us into some of our favorite Disney storylines this afternoon, brighting an otherwise blustery and cold day.
Actually, even the fruit surprised us with a little Hidden Mickey popping up as we sliced a strawberry for the fruit wands.
Released in mid-April, Disney Princess Tea Parties is on sale now for $17.99 on Amazon. When diving into this publication and others from Insight Editions, make sure to survey the ingredient lists before embarking on some of the more creative recipes. In this work, many recipes require ingredients that may not be on hand but sound quite scrumptious for any princess-themed tea party in your future.