Christmas Treats At WDW..

Watchmaker - do you have a direct link to my little flat? Today is the day for Mince Pie batch #1

This has got me to thinking - do you have Christmas Puddings? I know the full on Turkey dinner is for Thanksgiving. But what about a Roasted Ham or Goose for Boxing day?

There are indeed special Christmas meals done by some of the Disney restaurants that feature various holiday foods that are popular in the US.

Mince pie is not particularly popular in the States, I'm not sure that you would be able to find it. I did a quick search of the DFB Holiday book and I'm not seeing any reference to it.

My understanding is that the word Pudding means something different here in the States than it does in the UK. The restaurants that celebrate do have special dessert courses with holiday flair, but perhaps not the ones that you would be looking for. You'll find lots of holiday themed cup cakes and cookies, brownies, krispie treats, and so on that have been decorated with a holiday theme. You'll find a lot of apple, pumpkin, peppermint and gingerbread flavored things.

Tray 1 of 2...

The other is still in the oven....

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WOW i am impressed that they don't fall off the tray

Those of us with New England roots know and love mince pie. It's been a holiday staple in my life since I was a small child. But Kristen is right, for most Americans it's not a tradition at all.

Traditional UK Christmas pudding also is not popular in most of the USA, not even in New England.

Christmas cookies (biscuits to you Brits) are a huge tradition in most of the USA. The variety is huge and they can be quite elaborate.

The full turkey dinner is our Thanksgiving tradition, although many Americans also have it at Christmas. My family did when I was growing up - Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were essentially identical in my parents' home. Many Americans have other Christmas traditions, however. Some like a ham with all the trimmings for Christmas, others a standing rib roast (maybe even with Yorkshire pudding, yum). Some have traditions from their own cultural/ethnic background - tamales for Latinos, perhaps, or the feast of the seven fishes for Italian-Americans on Christmas Eve. Just a couple of examples.

And here in the USA, we don't have Boxing Day at all.

Looking at the yummy mince pie photos reminds me I didn't mention that in the USA, a mince pie is likely to be a PIE. As in, one of those 8 or 9 inch pie plates with crust and filling that you slice into wedges and serve on a plate with a fork.

I sometimes make a larger version, but generally mince pies are smaller. Easier to serve with a cup of tea

Thanksgiving for us is usually turkey and a ham (Honeybaked I am drooling thinking about it) with tons o' sides and desserts. I am not a sweet potato or pumpkin fan so usually Pecan! YUMMO!!!!

Christmas for us, well, years ago when my my worked at Belk in the mall she would always get Chick fil a nugget trays before coming home on Christmas eve so that would be our dinner. And still to this day is... She skipped it one year and my brother and I had a FIT!!!

As far as desserts, we've never been a big dessert family. We have a cake or maybe 2 sometimes but it's not a requirement.

Y'all have me all kinds of hungry.... I haven't had dinner!

The minced pies look interesting! Maybe it's what I will take to our friend's for T'giving this year. No Blondie this year so we have Drama Free Thanksgiving at a friend's house... LOL.. Best times!

A rural, southern Indiana delicacy: Persimmon Pudding for dessert on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I live 1,100 miles away now, and still need to get my fix about every other year.

Thanksgiving is less than a week away! Turkey & dressing (with cornbread,sausage & sage) mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, green bean casserole, ham and Betty's Salad (Betty Timko for people from NW Ohio). Gosh I better get to the grocery store!! Oops don't forget the pumpkin and pecan pie for Grandma.

Traditional Thanksgiving dinner in my parents' house was roast turkey, of course, white bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole (not with marshmallows, Mom made hers with pineapple and brown sugar), mashed turnip (the orange stuff, you might know it as rutabaga), creamed onions, cranberry sauce (both kinds) plus Mom's cranberry orange relish, and for dessert pumpkin, apple, and mince pie.

Now I make roast turkey with cornbread oyster dressing, mashed potatoes (for hubby, I don't like them), gravy, green bean casserole (for hubby), Mom's sweet potato casserole (again, for hubby), mashed turnip (for ME!), whole berry cranberry sauce (also for me, hubby isn't a fan of either kind), and for dessert some kind of pie - not all three for just the two of us, but maybe two since hubby and I have different favorites. And sometimes I change things up and make Brussels sprouts instead of green beans or something else instead of one of the other old standards.

Why must our Thanksgiving (Canada) be over C'mon Christmas!!! I'm hungry!

We do a mince pie review every year. We start around now and buy mince pies from different retailers and then give them ratings out of 10!

We did our first box this week,
Tesco finest - 8/10
Pastry a bit dry and crumbly but fruit very plump and juicy with great flavour. Very pretty design.

Our 2013 winner was Duchy Organic from Waitrose.

Apologies to those not from UK - you probably do not have a clue what I am on about!

Sure do. You're sampling all kinds of different mince pies. Tesco is a major chain of supermarket/grocery stores in the UK. And though I've never heard of Duchy Organic or Waitrose, I assume one is a brand of pie and the other is the place you bought it?

I have to drive about 30mins to get to Lidl, but I have started doing this every couple of weeks. I am going for a Xmas shop as soon as I can drive again after my op. I believe they are doing lobster and champagne at very reasonable cost!

Also you would absolutely expect waitrose to have the nicest as they are one of the more upmarket shops (they partner john Lewis, the one with the advert of the penguin). I love waitrose, we are due to get one here in basingstoke soon! It's probably no good for my bank balance though hahaha that being said tesco is where I do my main shop, nothing wrong with them at all.

Miss Mikki, my friend also does this with mince pies! She also rates lidl ones as 10/10 (not sure if you get lidl in America but it's very similar to aldi)

As Kristen mentioned, mince pies aren't all that popular over here, so there isn't a huge selection of premade pies to be had.

I buy Cross and Blackwell mincemeat in a jar and just pour it into pie crusts. But the result is a very lovely mince pie. Mmmmm...now I want mince pie!

I've never eaten mince pie, but it was a staple at my grandparents house during the holidays when I was growing up. I never tried it because they all called it "mincemeat" pie and the suggestion in my head of "meat" plus "pie" was too gross to 10-year-old me. Now that my grandmother is in the nursing home and my grandfather has passed away, Christmas has changed drastically and we no longer see mince pie at our family gatherings, but I'll always associate its existence with those blissful family Christmases.

As for holiday treats at WDW, the gingerbread was the highlight for me! Last year at the Boardwalk, I bought a gingerbread shaped like cotton candy with beautiful pink frosting. It was the closest thing to the delicious German gingerbread that my friend Jana had brought for us when she was here as an exchange student that I have tasted in the past 15 years. In a side-by-side taste test, they are probably nothing alike, but compared to the "gingerbread" products that I have tried locally, it's a close match.

I also particularly liked the wine in Germany--It was called William's Punch, I believe, and it was a hot mulled wine. I'm not typically a wine fan and that was actually the first time that I had ever finished a whole glass.

My grandmother would make mince pies at Christmas. We younger kids didn't eat it, however as an adult I did. Especially when I found out the key ingredient was.........BRANDY. Yummy!