Disney Infinity

Disney

Have you seen the ads for the new Disney Infinity game? It's kind of like Skylanders, which my family loves. You have characters, such as Captain Jack Sparrow, Sulley from Monsters Inc, and Mr Incredible, that you place on a base and they appear within the game. You can play in their worlds, or create your own. It looks awesome! Disney Infinity is available on several platforms: Wii, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, Playstation 3, and XBox 360. It is currently available for pre-order from the Disney Store for $74.99 and comes with Jack, Sulley, and Mr Incredible.

Additional characters are also available. Single characters are $12.99 and multi-character packs are also available. Currently, they are offering Mater, Francesco Bernoulli, Lightning & Holley, Syndrome, Violet, Dash, Mrs Incredible, Mike Wazowski, Randall Boggs, Davy Jones, Barbossa. There's also a sidekick pack with Barbossa, Mrs Incredible, and Mike Wazowski and a villains pack with Syndrome, Randall, and Davy Jones. I can't wait to see more! Be sure to check out the videos on the Disney Store website.

Photo of the Week

At least this way, I don't have to see the Yeti!

EPCOT's Norway Pavilion Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary

I love the World Showcase at EPCOT. It is one of my favorite places at Disney World to take a leisurely stroll... while attempting to eat my way around the world. I can honestly say, I've never made it all the way around the world in one day. There's just too much fabulous food! (And it's even worse during the Food and Wine Festival!) One of my favorite snacks at Disney World is the School Bread from the Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe from EPCOT's Norway Pavilion. In honor of the pavilion's 25th Anniversary today, I would like to share a recipe for School Bread. I have researched several recipes for School Bread, both Norwegian classics and one's straight from Disney, and think this recipe combines the best of both. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but hope to soon!

School Bread
1 cup water
2 envelopes Active Dry Yeast
1/2 cup sugar
5 Tbsp butter
1 tsp cardamom
4 cups flour
1 large egg, beaten

Heat water and butter to 100 degrees Farenheit. Add yeast, sugar, cardamom, flour, and egg. Mix approximately five minutes or until it becomes a stiff dough. Form into a ball and put into an oiled bowl. Cover and allow to rest 45 minutes or until doubled in size. Roll into a log shape and cut into orange sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and allow to proof for 30 minutes. Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Allow to cool. While the bread is cooling, make the custard filling.

Custard
1 2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
4 egg yolks
1 Tbsp corn starch

Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy saucepan, then set aside. In a bowl, beat together eggs, sugar, and vanilla until doubled in volume. Slowly add the hot milk to temper the eggs, mixing well. Pour the mixture into a double boiler. Dissolve the corn starch in a small amount of water and slowly add to the mixture, stirring constantly. Allow mixture to thicken, but do not boil. Remove from heat and place in an ice bath to cool.

Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp milk or water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup shredded coconut

Mix together powdered sugar and either water or milk and vanilla to form a thin icing.

Now, you can bring it all together. Dip the top of the bread into the icing and sprinkle each one with the shredded coconut. Fill a pastry bag with the custard. Using a fairly large star tip, poke a hole in the center top of each bread and fill with custard. Finish with a decorative swirl of custard on top.

May the Fourth Be With You

Happy Star Wars Day! I love this ridiculously geeky holiday celebrating one of my favorite movie series. When we went down to Disney World for Star Wars Weekends last year, we took a lot of great photos. This is one of my favorites.

"Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?"

Jedi Training Academy

I'm over at Tips from the Disney Diva today talking about one of the most fun activities for kids at Disney's Hollywood Studios: Jedi Training Academy.

Decade of Marvel

All images: Marvel

Well, it looks like this may be the decade of Marvel. After releasing 2 Iron Man films, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, and the Avengers, Marvel has raised the bar for superhero movies. And with two new Avengers series movies due out this year, two next year, and 2 in 2015, there's a lot to look forward to. Here's a list of what's to come:

• Iron Man 3 - May 3, 2013
• Thor: The Dark World - November 8, 2013
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier - April 4, 2014
• Guardians of the Galaxy - August 1, 2014
• the as yet unnamed Avengers 2 - May 1, 2015
• Ant-Man - November 6, 2015

Today, Iron Man 3 was released in theaters. I can't wait to see it! I had some issues with parts of Iron Man 2, mostly related to the villain, but 3 looks really good. I love Robert Downey, Jr as Tony Stark and really like Don Cheadle as Rhodie, too. This film introduces Iron Patriot, as well as other Iron Man characters. At one point, even Pepper Potts wears the suit. It looks awesome!

I can't wait to see Thor: the Dark World as well. Thor will finally be reunited with Jane Foster before battling the dark force that threatens our universe. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and the Asgardians cannot defeat, Thor must risk everything to save us all. It looks like just about everyone from the first film has returned, which is fantastic.

Next will be Captain America: the Winter Soldier. I don't know much about Captain America, but my sister had told me about the Winter Soldier when we saw the first movie. I won't mention names as it may be a surprise to some, but this film will team up Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, in a battle against dark forces hiding in Washington, DC.

I'll share more about these films as they reach their release dates. I love Marvel superheroes and am glad that they have now teamed up with Disney for the movies. And if you do watch these films, be sure to keep an eye out for Stan Lee. He always makes an appearance and it's always hilarious!

New to me Disney fun

Oooooohhhhh, the Claw!

I don't know about you, but I love to go to garage sales and used stores like Goodwill looking for fun Disney treasures. The prices are always affordable and I've found some really fun items. I wanted to share some of the goodies I've found in recent weeks.

I am unfortunately addicted to the Little Green Men from the Toy Story movies. I just adore the little critters. When I found a Big Bucket O' Little Green Men at the shop across from Toy Story Mania in Hollywood Studios, I really wanted one, but just couldn't spend $20 on a bucket of Little Green Men. What would I do with 25 anyway, right? Well, I guess I'll have to do something with them because I just bought an unopened set at a garage sale for $3.

I take so many photos at Disney World that I figure you can never have too many frames. I found the cutest Fantasia frame at Goodwill for 50 cents. The only trouble was that Mickey's nose was missing, but I figure I can fix that easily enough. 

I also picked up this cute Mickey pirate for $1. I love pirates and Mickey, so I couldn't pass it up. And I found a kids cup with Mickey and Friends dressed as Pirates of the Caribbean for 50 cents that I plan to use as a vase.

One of my favorite finds is a set of three McDonald's glasses from 2000. I have Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom and EPCOT and only paid $3 for the set. I have looked everywhere for a MGM Studios one, but they seem to be fairly scarce and far too expensive. Regardless, I love these glasses and use them every day.

Bean was happy when we found two of the color your own pillowcases, one with Fairies and one with Cinderella. They were brand new, still in the package, for $2 each. Bean has recently discovered that she loves to color iron-ons, so this was perfect.

And now you know why I can never pass up a garage sale or Goodwill: I never know what Disney goodies I will encounter!