We’re over half-way through our Pixar Fest posts! This week is CARS 2 week. If you haven’t gotten to Pixar Fest yet, you’ve got until September 3 to get there. I have Italian Spritz Cookies for you this week. Life, Family, Joy has CARS Yogurt Bars and They Call Me T has more Disney Bounding outfits! Wear one on your next Disney trip!

Photo Credit: Disney Pixar

Italian Spritz Cookies

When I was trying to figure out what to make for CARS 2, I got on Pinterest to look for “Italian Cookies.” A lot of them looked like stuff I wouldn’t eat, or they seemed pretty difficult. Then I found out that these cookies are considered Italian, so if you have heard they’re something else, just pretend with me. I won’t pretend to have made them. My daughter does most of the baking…okay, 98% of it…so she baked these too. They’re very yummy, so celebrate CARS 2‘s Italian race car Francesco Bernoulli with these Italian Spritz Cookies.

Photo Credit: Disney Pixar

The recipe Molly uses is on the back of the cookie press she uses. These cookies are delicious! You can eat them plain, of course, but in order to make them more CARS 2-like, you can paint them with red, white, and green chocolate to look like the Italian flag.

Italian Spritz Cookies Ingredients

• 3 1/2 c. flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 T. milk
• 1 t. vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°.  Mix together flour and baking powder in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla and mix. Add flour mixture to wet mixture slowly and beat until smooth.

Fill a cookie press with dough and put whatever disc on the press you want. Press the cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. If you want to dip them in chocolate, let them cool completely first. Then melt chocolate at 30 second intervals until smooth. Dip cookies and place on wax paper to harden.

Cars 2

Star race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and the incomparable tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) take their friendship on the road from Radiator Springs to exciting new places when they head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car. But the road to the championship is filled with plenty of potholes, detours and hilarious surprises when Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage!

Pixar Fest and Cars

PAINT THE NIGHT PARADE (ANAHEIM, Calif.) The popular nighttime parade returns to the Disneyland Resort for Pixar Fest, this time making its way through Disney California Adventure Park. (Joshua Sudock/Disneyland Resort)

“Life is a Highway” ­– Lightning McQueen and Mack from “Cars”

• The “Cars” unit features everyone’s favorite Piston Cup Champion, Lighting McQueen, along with Mack and DJ.
• At 54 feet long, Mack is the longest vehicle in the parade, with 28 moving lights.
• Mack’s design features a 3D display that creates exceptional depth of image. The display contains nearly 27,000 individual orbs.
• Almost 2,000 feet of LED “neon” helps bring this float to life.

Special Cars Land Food for Pixar Fest

• Flo’s V8 Café has a special menu for Pixar Fest. It features items such as a classic cheeseburger, turkey club sandwich, cobb salad, fried chicken plate and more.
• You can get a Habanero meatball cone at Cozy Cone Motel.