When Disney first assembled their royal heroines in the 90s at the dawn of the Disney Princess franchise, they became synonymous with their signature dresses, nice manners, and group tea parties. As the franchise grew beyond its original six members, the tea party motif faded into the background. But nothing brings people together like food and royals are synonymous with high tea, so the concept is back. For the third Disney Princess cookbook from Insight Editions, fans have everything they need to host a tea party fit for not just any princess, but a Disney Princess. With more than 50 recipes inspired by twelve fabulous characters, Disney Princess Tea Parties by Sarah Walker Caron offers a mix of sweet and savory treats for every guest on your list.
(Insight Editions/Disney)
Recipes are grouped into five sections: Little Bites; Savory Bakes; Sweet Bakes; Tiny Sandwiches and Soups; and Tea Party Sips. Preceding the recipes are party-planning tips to help make it a communal event, as well as a list of baking instruments that will be helpful for these recipes. Each recipe features a full-sized color photo of what the finished result should look like, along with an image of the princess the recipe was inspired by (there is one case of Aurora, in her blue dress, incorrectly applied to a Cinderella recipe).
From a layout standpoint, Disney Princess Tea Parties looks very pretty but loses points for ease of use. When your counter is full of ingredients and your hands are covered in flower and dough, you want a simple bullet-point list of instructions that can quickly be referenced. Instead, you get paragraphs with multiple steps in them, making it frustrating when you need that next step and are cooking on your own. Unless you have a menagerie of animal friends to do your bidding, this could turn a chef with the demeanor of Snow White into a truly vengeful queen.
The recipes themselves are creative and tasty, with efforts made to incorporate healthy ingredients. With the chapter categories, it’s easy to assemble a menu for your tea party. Fans looking to make a party based around one particular character, however, should note that there isn’t a recipe for every character in each section. Most sections have ten recipes, some of which feature multiple recipes for the same character. You can certainly still do a character-specific menu, it just might not have the perfect balance of sweet-and-savory dishes and may not include a themed beverage. The quantity of character-specific recipes is as follows:
- Cinderella – 7
- Snow White – 5
- Jasmine – 5
- Rapunzel – 5
- Ariel – 4
- Belle – 4
- Pocahontas – 4
- Mulan – 4
- Tiana – 4
- Merida – 4
- Moana – 4
- Aurora – 3
Disney Princess Tea Parties is another fun Disney-themed cookbook from Insight Editions. The recipes are all creative and well-themed to each character represented in the Disney Princess franchise. It offers a nice mix of sweet and savory recipes, which help set it apart from two of the previous releases, Disney Princess Baking and Disney Princess Healthy Treats.
(Please note this article contains affiliate links. Your purchase will support LaughingPlace by providing us a small commission, but will not affect your pricing or user experience. Thank you.)