Kodama

The latest game I backed on Kickstarter was Kodama. If you've seen Princess Mononoke, the name might ring a bell. Kodamas were those cute little forest spirits with rotating heads that became extremely popular. In this game, your goal is to grow a tree so that these cute spirits have somewhere to play and stay over the winter. Thanks to the wonderfully cute creative direction and novel gameplay mechanics that are easy to grasp and still pose a nice fun challenge, Kodama quickly became my favourite game to bring to my friends for gaming afternoons.

The central mechanism of growing a tree is brilliant. Each player has their trunk card and every round they add a branch card to expand the tree. A branch card may only be laid over one existing card in a fashion that the connection of the branch looks natural. Especially in the later parts of the game, this makes players position their branches carefully so that there is still room for future expansion and still look for a way to connect the cards so that they look natural.

Firefly: The Game

You could hardly find a universe that is loved by geeks around the world more than that of Firefly's. Joss Whedon's short-lived sci-fi/western TV series's cult status was partially caused by the cancellation of the show after the first season but the truth is, its premise and cast was so exceptional, strange and yet well-done to just make it work. Cowboys in space became a defining moment in Nathan Fillion's and Summer Glau's careers and they had to work hard to get out of the same role in their following projects.

Anyway, Firefly is dead but it doesn't mean it is really, really dead. The fanbase of all things Whedon is strong and still growing and geeks everywhere are quite probably still finding about the show even now. It is a bit weird that the board game came out last year, ages after the cancellation. Is it worth joining the crew of Cap'n Mal and others or should we stop beating the dead horse?

Assassin's Cake IV: Caribbean Carrot Cake

One of the things that working for a video game site is great for is that I get in contact with a LOT of video game information. Like this one time, I was writing an article about a new developer's video on Assassin's Creed 4 and I was stunned by how beautiful and well-thought the game seemed. I am now officially stoked for AC4 and this cake is one of the proofs of it. By the way, it comes out next week! Eeeee...

Assassin's Creed 4 will take place in Caribbean which came in handy because I wanted to make a pineapple cake for some time. I drew inspiration from Piňa Colada, an alcoholic cocktail made from coconut rum, pineapple juice and cream. The cocktail is definitely Caribbean in nature, so I thought it would give the cake the proper flavour. I was deciding between adapting a red velvet cake (because of the red color) and a carrot cake but then I decided the chocolate flavour of RV would probably suppress the rum, pineapple and coconut punch I wanted the cake to have.

Carrot cake itself is quite sweet and moist and but I didn't want the bits of carrot to be found in the final product. I puréed the carrots into soft mash and they disappeared in the batter while giving it their thickening properties. The cake was great, tasted like pineapples with coconut, though the rum flavour was hardly there. Perhaps more rum next time?

Also, I gotta nag about the buttercream. Is Czech confectioner's sugar sweeter than the American one? The buttercream ended up way too sweet. It was okay with the pineapple in the middle layer but the top was too much sweet but I followed a recipe from my book to a point... So I don't know. Any tips on European buttercream frosting will be greatly appreciated :)

Victoria Sponge Cake

All those things that keep getting in the way of baking, like exams and changing jobs and more exciting things like running and trying to keep a diet of sorts (who am I kidding? I love cake). However, there is an important date coming soon, Friday 14th June is the International Steampunk day.

Steampunk is cool if you're a geek and only a tiny bit weird but harmless if you are not. The whole idea is to dress and act (and relive) the period of the industrial revolution during Queen Victoria's reign with clothing adorned with cogs and brass. In a fictionalized period of the age of steam, there are blimps in the sky and fascinating machines as if from the works of Jules Verne propel adventurers on whatever journey they might be on.

Anyway, when I learned that there was such a thing like a Steampunk day, I immediately knew how to celebrate it. Majestic Queen Victoria which lived for 800 years (she looked great for her age) supposedly loved this one dessert which is today known after her. When I looked into it more, I found some background info that she had it with her daily afternoon tea with her personal assistant. Charming! And since Steampunk is tightly knit with the Victorian period, a slice of Queen's favourite dessert should satisfy everyone from high aristocrats to the greasiest of monkeys.

Dragon Strawberry Milkshake

Ever since the time I saw the teaser trailer for Dragons from The Secret World, I wanted to make the strawberry milkshake that the protagonist of the trailer makes.

Another version of the video was released eventually, this time it had the recipe for the milkshake at the end and that was it - the recipe was handed to me on a silver plate. I only had to wait until the strawberries were in season...

Late April is not the strawberry season by any means but the store I go to for afternoon snack had them discounted for the time being and so it was decided, I would make the milkshake. Was it chance or providence, it was also my name day, a day in the year that's treated as a smaller birthday (optionally with a small gift and a small cake). There was no better day to have a Dragon Strawberry Milkshake prepared for an after-dinner dessert.

I made enough milkshake for three people with adjusted values from the original recipe and also converted it to metric units, as I always do, but if you want the original recipe, here is the screenshot from the teaser trailer.

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).

Zerg Pudding Pie

Zerg Rush

It's less than a year since Diablo 3 came out and there it is - another wonderful opportunity to celebrate a computer game release with a baked goodness. Heart of The Swarm, the first expansion to the very popular RTS StarCraft 2, is coming out on 12th March, the upcoming Tuesday, and it is going to focus on the Zerg swarm and its fate after the big thing at the end of the Wings of Liberty. I dare not to spoil anything because it's awesome and you should find out on your own.

When I was thinking how to make a Zerg pie, I had couple ideas but I always came back to that it had to be slimy. Of course, Zergs are all about being slimy and what's slimier than The Creep? The purple microorganism that the race spreads on its colonies to allow faster movement, regeneration and mutating into structures was the perfect filling of the celebratory pie.

The Secret World Bonbons

I guess it's no secret that I'm a computer game fan as well. I already published one PC game inspired recipe and now I came up with a way to represent the dark urban fantasy MMORPG The Secret World as a dessert.

In the game, there is another world hidden from us. It is  so near, that it is almost tangible. Every tale and conspiracy theory are true in The Secret World. You are one of the chosen ones by Gaia, you are brought to this world to fight the forces of evil that stir beyond the veil. You belong to one of three factions that, while normally enemies with each other, joined forces to fight against the dark threat. The power-hungry Illuminati controlling the North America, the traditionalist Templars based in Europe, and the chaos instigators Dragon that have hold of Asia.

These three societies each don their colour - blue, red and green respectively - yet to our world they are hidden amongst myths. This gave me and idea for a chocolate covered candy that would have three distinct flavours, so you'd never know which you're going to get. Each, of course, would need to have the proper colour too.

Kotaku's list of Top 5 board games of 2012

Every year the last few days are spent of summarizing, remembering what good and bad we've been through.   Kotaku, a gamer site, has made a list of top 5 board games of this year and it makes me happy to see a fellow Czech, the boardgame designer mastermind Vlaada Chvatil, snatching the first place with his (as I heard) fantastic game called Mage Knight.

Raving reviews speak of fantastic puzzle-like card fantasy game with a lot of planning... which reminds me a lot of Dungeon Petz, another of his games. However, I love Dungeon Petz so I wouldn't mind another game of a similar style. The only bad thing about Mage Knight is that it costs about 1600 CZK, which is about $80 or €65. Phew, way too much for a blind purchase. (And I've been sorta saving up for Mansions of Madness...)

Amongst other items on the list include an interesting friendship-wrecking zombie game City of Horror or a Magic: The Gathering's designers another card game Android: Netrunner which is also getting universal praise.

The list can be found here on Kotaku.

Christmas Gingerbread Cookies

There's no recipe this time.

This weekend I got together with Jana, a friend of mine from work, and we baked some pretty neat gingerbread cookies. Now, we only had three cookie cutters - two shaped like squirrels (mine) and one shaped like a star (hers). I didn't feel like making a gingerbread dough since it is MUCH easier to just go and buy pre-made one in a store (I dunno about store-bought dough in other countries, but Babické dough is fantastic here in CZ). Maybe I'll make gingerbread dough from scratch next year but not having to deal with the procedure and having to keep it in the fridge overnight gave us more time to play with the shapes and decoration.

We split the dough into quarters. One became large squirrels, one small squirrels, one stars and the last one we made into custom shaped Tetris blocks. There's a little video shot by Jana.

This year's Christmas will be like no other... cookie-wise.

Virtual Boardgames

Something that struck me as I browsed Google Play Store's recommended apps for my tablet. Among a myriad of copies of Angry Birds and various skill calculators for Blizzard's games, a shining gem named The Elder Sign: Omens appeared, fittingly named. In that app I saw an omen of board games leaving the tops of tables and settling on our screens - be it a desktop, tablet, phone or a console.

Some games tend to go the opposite way - first there is a video game and then they make a board game based on it (World of Warcraft, Doom 3, Civilization) but I think we are going to see more of "board game-turned-computer game" games soon.

Rainbow White Chocolate Brownies

This Saturday marks the second time that there will be a Pride event held in Prague. To celebrate diversity and a little extravagance I've decided to prepare a batch of rainbow coloured brownies since I had to do it before the weekend and brownies are so easy to make, they were perfect for a last minute baking project.

I wasn't nervous about using the food colouring as it wasn't my first time working with it (that would be the cute heart muffins) but I hoped the colours wouldn't mix and spoil the result. Eventually, that didn't happen and the colours stayed separated, layered and the brownies looked great when cut.

There's 6 colours to the LBGT flag and colouring 6 batches of dough turned out to be quite lengthy. I suggest you start preheating the oven halfway.

Diablo 3 Teacakes

You must be at least lv 60 to take on these bad guys

In celebration of Diablo 3 coming out in couple hours, I've made a little something to make the time go by faster. These Diablo 3 "devil" teacakes are balancing on the sweet and darkly bitter line of chocolate flavour that would make even personalised Gluttony's mouth water. Adorned with cute red horns, they are best enjoyed with a cup of tea (or black coffee if you prefer) since they're as dry as the parched ground of the deepest Hell.

Now, only couple more hours till it begins.

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.

Valentine Vanilla Heart Muffins

As the 14th February rears its heart-shaped head, you too might crumble under the pressure of being all romantic and decide it's time to make something for your significant otter. The way to a man's heart leads through his stomach (unless you plan to stab him, in which case it's better to start a bit higher) but I'm quite positive that anyone enjoys muffins especially if they are enhanced by a cute heart inside.

I discovered the idea for these muffins at a really cool site dedicated to stuff inside cupcakes and adapted it to an easy muffin recipe. Eventually, I tried to make frosting but once again it didn't end up well and I am a proud owner of a delicious cream spread that's good on cinnamon toasts but is too runny to be used as frosting. Anyway, here's the recipe!