Banana and Chocolate Bábovka

Bábovkas are one of the simplest things you can whip up in a short time and have it served in about an hour. Generally, there is nothing difficult about the recipes but if you are not careful with the amount of liquids, you can end up with a bábovka so dry that it could be as well made from the sands of Sahara, or worse, a bábovka with gooey center.

The specific shape of bábovkas is achieved with a traditional form that has a funnel in the center and ribbed outside. In theory, the hot air in the funnel should prevent the centre from getting gooey, but anyone that ever tried baking one with cream cheese or bananas will agree that is not always the case.

I've tried to make a banana bábovka several times and failed more often than succeeded. The right balance of flour, sugar, milk and bananas seemed crucial and it wasn't until my latest attempt that I finally struck gold. Eventually I decided to add melted chocolate into the batter because bananas and chocolate just work together in terms of flavour and it gave the final result a very nice tint and aroma.

Malacca

In a market that is saturated by smaller indie tabletop games with zombies and Cthulhu themes, it is always nice to play something that avoids the cosmic madness and brain related issues. Something like, let's say, pirates. Though I suppose that pirates could be becoming the new trendy theme... There are a lot of pirate board games coming out next year and now even a major video game studio is trying to break out with their pirate game. After all, the pirate buccaneers and roguish swashbucklers can be found as well in games set in the ever-popular steampunk style. It is only one step from that to fame... or infamy

Malacca is a game by Czech game designers who in 2006 made an interesting tactical fantasy RPG board game, Dorn which later even got an expansion. Since then they have been focusing on making board games that have not seen a retail release as they were designed for kids and students to learn basics of ecology or economy. Malacca is their first real attempt to get back to the market with a game that is pure fun.

Nádivka - Easter Stuffing Cupcakes

Even though Easter is long gone, there's one thing I miss about it the most. It's the traditional Czech Nádivka, stuffing which you paradoxically don't stuff into anything (though you can) but you eat it on its own. Clearly, it used to be put inside a goose or a chicken, but nowadays we just eat it as a cake. A savoury cake.

This Easter my mum came up with a cupcake version of Nádivka that I fell in love with. It was SO good that the little cupcakes practically disappeared in a while. It is the combination of bacon and rohlíky with the spring herbs that makes you crave more as soon as you finish one. Omnomnomnom. 

I know that rohlíky are pretty much a Czech speciality and anywhere else in the world you have to do with all sorts of boring bread but if you'd like to make your own Nádivka cupcakes, I suggest using a fresh baguette, which would be rohlík's closest substitute, in my opinion.

Jidáše

Just before Easter and it's time for another Czech speciality. Last year I published a recipe for wonderful mini mazance, this year I chose to make jidáše (yi-dah-she, sg. jidáš, pl. jidáše), a specific kind of sweet bread that resembles the tangled beard of Judas (after whom they are named) or as another tale goes, the entwined bread represents the rope upon which Judas hanged himself in the end. However, the tradition of jidáše goes further beyond Christianity to the age of paganism. Then, obviously not called after Judas, it was actually a ritualistic bread in various shapes, it could even look like animals. This proto-jidáš was eaten on what is now called Maundy Thursday before the sunrise. It was covered in honey to protect people against diseases and snake bites.

Now, I'm not the one to dwell on religious symbolism of food too much but even today, not all jidáše look like two entwined ropes, so I guess the pagan legacy is still there in our folk culture. Along with the infamous whipping girls with a special Easter stick (...traditions), the Czech Easter is not the same without jidáše and nádivka (a kind of stuffing that is actually eaten on its own and it's absolutely delicious, maybe I'll post the recipe some other time too).

Dungeon Petz

I always wonder why Vlaada Chvatil, perhaps the best known Czech board game designer, chose to spell the name of his successor game to his earlier Dungeon Lords with 'z' in the word Pets. In my opinion, using 'z' instead of a 's' is a cheap way to convey craziness and zaniness, and to target child audience. The original name – Příšerky z podzemí (literally Little monsters from the underground) strays from the cheap area of misspelled words and still carries the message of cuteness and being set in the same universe as Dungeon Lords – Vládci podzemí.

And yes, Dungeon Petz IS a cute game. The illustrations are very well made, the little monsters themselves are adorable and the game manual is written with so much wit and humour that the whole package makes you want to hug the box and squee in delight. However, the stark contrast between the light-hearted facade and the deep, complex (complex but not complicated) gameplay is what makes the game unsuitable for kids. Or kidz.

Mini mazance

After the last week's Easter holiday, I felt like I haven't baked a proper thing in a long long time. I mean, sure, muffins are great and everything, but I missed the challenge of the more advanced baked goods. As I looked for some inspiration on the internet (and all I got were fruit cakes), I remembered that I saw this cooking show on TV where they were making these tiny mazance. Mazanec (that's sg., pl. is mazance) is according to Wikipedia hot cross bun, the sweet bread that's eaten on Easter but I can imagine that being the only thing hot cross buns and mazanec have in common..

Mazanec has a cross on its top that is made with scissors, not frosting. It tends to be large, a loaf of bread large, while hot cross buns are... well... buns. The mazanec is traditionally made with raisins and almonds. As far as I know, there are no substitutes but I guess the raisins could be omitted if you for some reason don't like them.

Now, as I said, mazanec is normally much bigger. I guess this recipe could be used for one standard mazanec but mini mazance are so cute and everything's getting smaller and smaller nowadays anyway. These guys are fragrant, stay yummy for a long time and they are great with butter or simply on their own.

A new game: Dungeon Petz

After some thought I decided to buy a new game. Vlaada Chvatil, the game designer behind the wonderful Galaxy Trucker and Through the ages, designed a spin-off game from his Dungeon Lords (which I hear was met with some mixed feelings) that tasks the player with managing a group of imps and breeding different monster pets.

I've played Dungeon Petz (Příšerky z podzemí in Czech) once so far and while the rules were a bit complex, I believe I understand about 90% of them and other sessions will go faster. The game is both a worker placement thing with some micro management. As you can tell from the box art, the game's graphics are lovely though the game board is slightly cluttered (though still keeping the graphics mostly functional).

After I play it some more, I'll write a post about it, as usual.
EDIT: Here's the post

Plum crumble cake

Still no finances for my planned plum surprise. however, as it is a plum season, my mom had her own way with a plum cake and let me share her recipe. I've tried my best to substitute her "finger width of butter" and "just enough plums" with real numbers based on some serious scientific calculation and observation, but since it's a pretty simple cake to bake, the amounts aren't as strict as with more complex cakes.

My mom bakes this cake in remoska (look here if you're interested http://www.remoska.co.uk/, remoska is the best thing since... umm... microwave oven?) but I'm quite sure you can make it in a standard oven.

Galaxy Trucker

Since my no-baking period has just been doubled by my dentist, I want to take this time to talk about a game that I played for the first time about a year ago. This game has an uninteresting name and box art, nothing that should capture your attention, but if you know something about board games then the name of its designer, Vlaada Chvatil, will probably hint you about its qualities. Let me say that Galaxy Trucker is an easy, enormously enjoyable and completely unforgiving game.

Bábovka

HDR bábovka with coconut, nom nom!

The reason why it took me a week to make a new post is that I've been trying to find the best recipe for another Czech recipe - the wonderful bábovka [baah-boph-kah]. I made three different bábovkas in the past week, three different recipes and three different results. Since you probably have no idea what a bábovka is, I tried to find a translation and the most plausible one is "pound cake". Yet, my English flatmate has never heard about pound cakes so let me describe bábovka for you: it is a rather thick, somewhat heavy (as opposed to fluffy) cake that is VERY easy to bake and its charm is in its variability. You can bake bábovka theoretically with everything - fruit, nuts, jam, yogurth, heavy cream, poppy seeds, coconut, etc.

Palačinky

It was about time that I posted this recipe for palačinky [pah-lah-chin-keh], czech something-like-crepes. While it is not exactly a product of baking, the preparation process is completely fool-proof and the result is wonderful. I was very happy when I found out that I can make them on my own and not only ask my mom to make palačinky for dinner. Actually, palačinky can be eaten not only for dinner but as breakfast or brunch too. Their simplicity is their strength beacause they go well with a lot of fillings. French people would put Nutella in them but we Czechs know better - a strawberry, raspberry or blueberry jam, Spanish natilla or any similar vanilla pudding-y substance and even curd, that all goes very well with palačinky and the door to experimentation are always open. There's no excuse for not having palačinky at least once in a month.

Dorn

the box art

If there is one thing I don't like in board games, it's the amount of luck you need to have to succeed. Rolling five dices and failing in all 5 instances makes me rage like nothing else. The thing is that when you, as a board game designer, reduce the luck factor, the players' success depends purely on their skill and the game becomes more strategic and chess-like. Which is actually a very good way to describe Dorn, a fantasy themed turn-based RPG that is heavily based on mathematics.

The story of the game goes that there is a dungeon with an evil lord in it and there is a town which is in danger. A group of heroes appears and goes on a quest to kill the evil lord. The beautifully designed game plan contains several areas through which the heroes wander and defeat groups and groups of monsters summoned by the evil lord. Players play for both the heroes and the evil lord, they take turns in planning and performing their actions.