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From the Disney Food Blog...

Disney Food Product Testing: The Red Mickey-Head Pan

Feb 22nd, 2012 by Erin.

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Disney World's Main Street Confectionery

I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I say that the first stop I make during every visit to the Magic Kingdom is the Main Street Confectionery. Just a whiff of the sweet smell inside lets me know that all is well in the universe.

One of my favorite pastimes is watching the cast members in the glass-walled kitchen create the specialties of the house: fudge, cake pops, chocolate-covered pretzels, candy apples, or Mickey-shaped krispie treats. I consider myself a bit of krispie artist, so the creation of these particular treats holds a special fascination for me.

I’ve stopped to watch the giant krispie Mickeys being made dozens of times. I love how they use the exact same Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and Jet-Puffed marshmallows that I use at home. And I’ve loved seeing those well-worn metal molds and wondering how many thousands of Mickeys have emerged from each one.

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Sturdy metal Mickey molds.

You can imagine my dismay when I made my usual Confectionery stop during a trip this past fall and saw — instead of the solid, practical metal Mickey pan being used to form krispie treats — a floppy red silicone pan. Quelle horreur!

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Red pan instead of a metal pan.

Not long after I noticed the switch at the Confectionery, I started seeing the red pan for sale in the kitchenware sections of all the larger merchandise locations on property.

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There's the red pan on the lower left.

Despite my initial skepticism about the ability of pliable silicone to be a firm mold, eventually I decided that if it’s good enough for the Confectionery, then it’s good enough for me. I bought the pan. ($17.95, sold everywhere.) And, of course, I had to put it to the test in my own kitchen.

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Giant Mickey Rice Krispie Treat Experiment

My daughter, Louisa, and I got to work whipping up a batch of Rice Krispie treats, following the tried and true recipe on the box.

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Ready for testing.

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Hot batch of Krispies.

I sprayed the inside of the pan with cooking oil and started to fill.

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Starting to Fill

We kept adding more krispies and packed them in firmly, then we waited about 10 minutes for the mash to cool.

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Adding Krispies

A quick flip onto a plate and — Voila! — a perfect Mickey krispie treat.

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Perfection

I was impressed. The floppy red pan delivered! Emboldened by our success, we decided to proceed with further testing. This time, we’d bake.

Mickey Face Cake Baking Experiment

For the sake of simplicity, we decided to use a boxed cake mix. And as the pan’s packaging suggested, we placed the pan on a cookie sheet for stability and ease of transport from counter to oven.

Louisa prepared the cake batter, and we filled the pan. Per package instructions, we didn’t fill it all the way to the top.

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Batter Prep

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Filled almost to the top...but not quite

The cake baked for half and hour and emerged a bit puffier than I would have liked. Next time, we’ll use even less batter in the pan.

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Baking

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Finished Cake

Again, we waited for about 10 minutes of cooling time and then flipped over the pan.

I had been expecting to see just plain cake, that we would then decorate with icing to give Mickey features. We were pleasantly surprised to seeing Mickey’s face smiling back at us, fresh out of the pan.

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Mickey smiles back at us!

The combination of the light-colored cake and the pan’s facial indentations allowed us to see Mickey’s expression.

If we had made a chocolate cake, we would have continued with the frosting project; but we liked the unadorned look so much that we decided to serve the cake as-is with a little fruit accompaniment.

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It was quite a hit with the entire family.

Results!

After completing two different types of cooking projects, I’m ready to give an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the red silicone Mickey-head pan sold in the parks. I even ran it through the dishwasher without incident.

Now we’re busy plotting how we’re going to use the pan next. Mickey brownies? Mickey ice cream cake?

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2012/02/22/disney-food-product-testing-the-red-mickey-head-pan/

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I saw those in use there in November. LOL This is just another small reminder for me of why I stopped writing a weekly column for the paper. Based on twenty years of filling 30 column inches each Friday, If it were me the thought process that went into this would be something like...

"WTFort am I gonna write about this week?"

"hmmm haven't a clue but deadline is in three hours better get moving on it"

"Balloons? Nope, did that last year."

"Cupcakes? uh-uhh did a column on those last summer"

"Oh wait, there's the castle! Quick what's new about the castle?" "rats! not a thing."

"Damn, why didn't think about this last week? Why do I always procrastinate?"

"Oh well since I'm stalling anyway, might as well stop and grab something sweet."

"Oh look fudge... nope, been done."

"New seasonal items? oops, did those already too."

"maybe I'll just kill some time here watching other people work"

"hey, check out those red pans. I can make that work and I'll even get to claim expenses!"

Erin did a really good job filling her column inches. Despite the snark, I enjoyed reading it.

Just wondering though, do you think she gets burned out looking for stuff to write about like the rest of us? Maybe they assign her topics to get the bigggest bang for the buck so she doesn't need to decide. I know Disney is exciting when you visit but, if you had to be creative on demand on a weekly basis, I bet it'd get old eventually too...

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