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 :)

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.