Tag Archives: Cars Land

Baking Magic – Mac and Cheese Bread Cones

THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING BAKING MAGIC POST FOR ME

Bacon Mac and Cheese Cone

If you’re not lucky enough to have tasted the glory that is a bacon mac and cheese bread cone from Disneyland’s Cozy Cone Motel, then you’re in for a real treat today. If you have, then I bring you the amazing news that you can make them at home!

Ready?

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Ok, for the cones you’re gonna need the ready-roll croissant dough that you can get from most supermarkets (one roll will make 4-5 cones), and a load of tin foil. Roll out the dough onto greaseproof paper, and using a knife or pizza cutter, cut it into strips. Pre-heat your oven to 180C

Scrunch up your foil into a cone shape, then wrap it in another layer of foil to give a smooth outer finish, then spray it with cooking oil. Take your first strip of dough, and working from the bottom of the cone, start to wrap it round and round, with a slight overlap with each layer, and keep adding strips until you’re happy with the size.

Grease a baking tray, and pop the cones on their side on the tray. Bake for 5 minutes, then turn the cone and bake for another five. Once nice and golden brown, place the cones onto a cooling rack and let them cool before removing the foil support from the middle.

Croissant cones

Ta-dah! You can make these a day in advance and keep them in a sealed container.

If you have a favourite mac and cheese recipe, whip up a batch, load your cone and sprinkle with some bacon chunks, and you’re all done! If not, here’s my favourite:

  • Cook 400g macaroni normally and drain.
  • Melt 50g butter in a saucepan, and gradually add in 50g flour until a thick paste forms.
  • Whisk in 250ml milk and be sure to beat out any lumps, then add 250g grated cheddar/mozzarella – if you’re gonna use mozzarella, mix it with cheddar otherwise its gonna be crazy stringy – and let it melt in.
  • Stir in 50g cream cheese and a pinch of salt and pepper, then add your drained pasta to your cheesy concoction.

Let your mac and cheese cool a little before loading up your cone, then top with bacon bits and devour in the sunshine!

Bacon Mac and Cheese cone

Have you visited the Cozy Cone?

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Why Disneyland’s Cars Land is Perfect

I remember going to see Cars in the cinema. Sure, I was 11 at the time so its not an amazing feat that I can remember it, but I still think it counts for something that I remember it so well.

A lot of people really don’t seem to like Cars, and I don’t really get it. I mean, I guess it was aimed a lot more at boys, and maybe the storyline isn’t Pixar’s finest, but what still amazes me to this day is how, now almost 10 years old, the animation is flawless; the reflection of light off the cars, the feel of the speed and the depth of the surroundings, to me its all just seamless.

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Disneyland opened Cars Land in its California Adventure park in 2012, and when I discovered its beauty through various Instagram accounts, I became more and more amazed by it, and so it was probably my most anticipated part of our visit in January. I was not disappointed..

It is 100% accurate

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The road is set out exactly how it is in the film. In fact, Disney are so confident in this that if you visit Sarge’s, there is actually a model Radiator Springs, and I bet you can’t spot any discrepancies!

The Cozy Cone Motel

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The film really doesn’t go into too much detail about the Cozy Cone other than its exterior, which Imagineers got down to the cone water feature on the front lawn and the car bulb flowers, but they even went above and beyond on the interiors! Well, each surrounding cone is a food kiosk, but the reception building is laid out just as you’d expect at any motel, complete with postcards and cone-y (get it, corny, cone-y.. Please laugh) souvenirs.

The cars really drive and really talk

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Not only can you meet the stars of the films, but they actually drive through the streets and interact – with guests as well as each other! You can meet Lightning McQueen, Mater, and more on rotation outside the Cozy Cone Motel.

The third flash is longer

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If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that as a solitary town, the traffic light is on a constant amber warning flash, and hippy van Fillmore has a theory that the third flash is always longer. Well, I can vouch for that!

Radiator Springs Racers is flawless

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The big-ticket ride of the land, Racers is very similar to WDW’s Test Track. Board a car through the beautiful canyons before you visit the town itself, complete with the most perfect audio-animatronic characters – their words and actions are just as if you stepped into the film! After you’ve driven through the town and cow-tipped with Mater, you might get your tyres done at Luigi’s or a paint spray at Ramone’s before lining up with another car of guests and racing back through the Springs to a photo-finish. I’m not sure I’m doing it justice, but its just wow.

There’s some AMAZING food on offer

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This is a Bacon Mac’n’Cheese Bread Cone. I’m just gonna leave this here..

The lights are just magical

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You know how Sally feels about the return of the neons in the film? YOU FEEL IT. The lights turn on at dusk every day, and the darker the sky gets, the more beautiful the street does. It really just brings the road to life, just as it does in the film. Also, just as there are a few minor imperfections in the film’s neons, you’ll find them in Cars Land.

Ok, I could go on and on and share photo after photo (which I probably will on Instagram), but whether you’re a Cars fan or not I’d happily bet you’d still be amazed by it!

What do you think?

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Disneyland Day 3 – Star Wars 10K!

Well what a day!

Being a race day, I was up just before 4am; because Disneyland is so compact, we could just walk to the start line from our hotel, no need to wait for buses etc, which meant we could afford that extra half an hours sleep. Today was the 10k, and we were in corral B, but it was very noticeable how fewer people were taking part in this race compared to last weeks.

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We got off about 7 minutes after the first group, and it was a really good race! The first mile and a half was done on the perimeter of the Disneyland park, before we weaved in and out of backstage, then across to California Adventure after about 3 miles. Everything was still lit up as it was just before sunrise – which was when we hit about 4-5 miles – and the characters were awesome: BB-8, Stormtroopers and Jango Fett to name a few! We finished in 1:15, which isn’t our fastest (1:03) but considering stopping for photos etc it’s pretty damn close!

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Medals and snack boxes acquired, we walked back to the hotel for a quick recover, then into California Adventure via the Grand Californian Hotel to beat the crowds, and straight to Toy Story Midway Mania. The park had only just opened so we only waited about 15 minutes, and afterwards we did Mickey’s Fun Wheel and Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, both of which had less than a 5 minute wait. In need of energy, we took another walk down Radiator Springs, and grabbed food at the Cozy Cone Motel; I had a bacon mac’n’cheese bread cone (YES) and Dad had a pretzel twist, then we sat at Flo’s V8 Cafe and watched the world – and the cars! – go by for a little while. We were taking things easy today after all!

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Onwards, and we slowly walked around the park we had been running through a few hours earlier, before deciding to head back to the RunDisney expo for a last look around, then caught the monorail from Downtown Disney into the Disneyland park. First up was another performance of Mickey and the Magical Map, then back across to Royal Theatre to catch the Tangled show, but the times had been changed and the showing we had hoped to see wasn’t on, so once again we postponed seeing it, and feeling a little drained, decided to go back to the hotel for a swim and chill session. The Paradise Pier Hotel has a rooftop pool and hot tub – ok it’s only on the roof of the third floor but that still counts right? – and it was just what we needed for our achey legs.

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After suitable recovery time, we once again set off for California Adventure, first of all hoping to get another ride on Radiator Springs Racers, but it was having some technical issues, so it was California Screamin’ instead! Finally hoping to catch the Pixar Play Parade, we set up camp on the parade route across from Paradise Pier nice and early so that we could sit and rest our legs for a while. I know I’ve said this about basically every show and parade we’ve watched this trip, but once again I was blown away! There were bugs, toys, cars, bubbles.. It was so much fun!

After the parade it was carb-loading time, so spaghetti and meatballs at Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta hit the spot just right. Now dark out, we were really excited to go back over to Cars Land to see it all properly lit up in all its neon glory before heading back to the hotel for an early night of good solid rest.

Tomorrow is our last race, eeek!

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Disneyland Day 2 – featuring celebrity guest!

Another day of magic in Disneyland!

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It started with our breakfast reservations at Plaza Inn in the Disneyland park, a character buffet meal, and while most character meals often have 4-5 characters tops, we saw 8! Advertised as Minnie and friends, they included Winnie the Pooh, Rafiki, Max and the Fairy Godmother, who came to our table as we ate for hugs and photos. From there we dashed across to the Royal Theatre for the first showing of Fantasy Faire. In the show, they tell a classic Disney story – this was Frozen – with two male narrators, and featuring Anna and Elsa, but it was hilariously funny, and most of the humour was for the sake of the adults more than the kids! Afterwards, we crossed into Adventureland to ride Indiana Jones as we’d missed out yesterday, then the plan was to see the first performance of Mickey and the Magical Map. However when we arrived at Fantasyland Theatre, due to technical issues the first show had been cancelled, so we decided to hop across into California Adventure.

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I say hop, because you basically can; much like Disneyland Paris, the two parks are on each other’s doorsteps, with maybe 100 metres between the two gates. The biggest change since we were last here in CA was the introduction of Cars Land, so that was definitely first on the agenda, and man did Disneyland get it right! I pretty much could have just stumbled through a screen into Radiator Springs, it was all so on point! The main ride, Radiator Springs Racers had over an hour wait, so for the first time this trip we decided to do single rider, cutting our wait down to maybe only 15 minutes. The ride is a lot like WDW’s Test Track; you travel through Radiator Springs, meeting familiar characters, then line up with another car of guests for a high speed race through the desert to the finish line!

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From there, we went to Paradise Pier, which is one of my favourite places in any Disney park. The main rides all had super long wait times or were broken down, so we just walked around for a bit before continuing round the park, getting a little damp on Grizzly River Run and heading down to Hollywood Land for a trip to Monsters Inc. We grabbed ice-cream floats at Clarabelle’s, then went to hang out in the Animation building until the Animation Academy class we wanted: Baymax!

With the sun shining, we headed back to Paradise Pier to find that California Screamin’, the big roller coaster previously broken down, was now open and had a fairly short wait, so that was next, then we headed back to the hotel quickly to drop off our drawings, then we went back into the Disneyland park for Mickey and the Magical Map.

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It was everything I’d expected it to be, unbelievable! There was live singing, dancing, Flynn Rider.. Yup, pretty happy. To avoid the long queues, we decided to do single rider on the Matterhorn bobsleds after coming out of the theatre, so we only had to wait about 15 minutes, then we wandered through Tomorrowland for another ride on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters.

Now today in the park, there have been a bunch of signs informing guests of a filming taking place this evening for a TV feature, and the castle has been closed off to set up a stage with instruments for a concert, including a red piano.. Anyone know where this is going? Cast members weren’t allowed to disclose the name of the star, but a few hints confirmed our suspicions: Elton John was playing tonight! Excited by this news, we found a fairly secluded spot for Paint the Night, which was to be followed with the fireworks before the concert started. As you can imagine, Main Street was packed, and the area in front of the castle had been cordoned off, so we stood in Pixie Hollow, away from the main crowds. Paint the Night was obviously just as magical as the night before, although one of the pixie dancers had a little fall right near us, oops! We couldn’t see the fireworks quite as well, but hey ho.

And then we waited. For over an hour. And then he appeared.

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(We were maybe only 100 metres away but this was the best shot I could get!)

Gospel choir and all, he opened with Circle of Life, and the crowd went crazy! He actually performed it twice so that the cameras could get all the right shots, and then another song which we could barely hear over the fireworks, before we decided to make a break for the exit, not because we’re boring but because tomorrow brings a very early morning! And in any case it would seem that was it for Elton too as he quickly disappeared from the stage..

Now how’s that for Disney Magic? Well with our first Star Wars race tomorrow, we’re calling it an early on, so I’ll catch up with you tomorrow!

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