The Zelda Gourmet: 8-bit

Showing posts with label 8-bit. Show all posts

Happy 100 Quests! We have been questing for awhile now and I wanted this post to be extra special. So today I sharing with you THE recipe for the cupcakes that are so popular with my family. I often make these for when we people over for board game days and other get-togethers. These are super chocolately and I will bet you that you can't just have one. For being gluten free, these cupcakes will definitely fill your heart container. Enjoy!

Gear!
1 GF chocolate cake mix - Betty Crocker
1 GF brownie mix - Betty Crocker
6 eggs
1 cup water, hot
2 tsp instant espesso
1 stick butter (1/2 cup) softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder

Quest!

For this particular recipe, you do need to use these particular mixes. They normally make a small pan of brownies and a single layer cake.

In a mixer, beat eggs until light yellow.

In a measuring cup, measure out your hot water from the tap. Then add instant espresso powder. Mix and let it sit for a little bit.

Add softened butter, vanilla and baking powder to eggs. Mix until combined.

Add mixes to the bowl and stir on low. Add in espresso mix and continue to mix for 2 minutes on medium. Should be like a cake mix when done. Let this sit for at least 5 minutes for the flour to fully absorb the liquid.

Preheat the oven to 350 degree F. Get your cupcake liners ready in the pan and make sure to spray the liners with non stick spray. Spoon the cake mixture in so they come up about 3/4 of the way full. Should make 24 cupcakes.

Bake for 18-23 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the cupcakes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Once completely cooled decorate with your favorite frosting. Today with have a light pink vanilla frosting.

Add red and pink hearts to indicate how much life the hero still has. Add some extra sprinkles for fun and Enjoy!

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Now, the last time we tried 8-bit cookies, Link turned out - a little deformed for lack of a better word. I have to admit, it was complex and a little ambitious for a first try with the Play-doh fun factory. However, upon reflection it was a good experience that taught us a lot about this process and the amount of patience needed to complete such a task. Having taken all of this into consideration, it is time to try again in a more simplified way - Navi cookies. Now, we have added the extra task of making these cookies gluten free, but I think we are up to the challenge. I hope you enjoy this redo and even give this a try yourself. It is not for the faint of heart, but it can be a very cool process nonetheless. Enjoy!

Gear: Get the printable recipe here!

2 cups AP gluten free flour with xanthium gum added
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter softened
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Black Gel Food Coloring

Dark Blue Gel Food Coloring

Play-doh Fun Factory

Plastic wrap

Quest:

Let's make the dough! Cream the sugars and butter together, add egg and vanilla. Mix in flour, salt, baking powder. You have yourself a nice little dough!

Now the math comes in. In the last try at this, I failed miserably at part, but since I only have three colors, it should be much easier.

Here is your spreadsheet to help you out.

Divide the dough into three parts keeping in mind the percentages that you need for each. Wrap the largest in plastic wrap. Take the middle sized piece of dough and color it blue. Take the smallest and color it black. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and let dough rest in the refrigerator for about an hour.

Prep your Play-doh fun factory by spraying it with some non stick spray - you will thank me later!

Using a little more math, we need to divide up the dough so that we will get the proper number of pixels in our cookies. Take the number of plain pixels for example, and divide it by 4 since we will get 4 pixels per press through the Fun Factory. In this case we get 18.something, meaning we will need 18 and some extra to splice the last piece. Black is easy - 6. And Blue is 10 and change.

Make sure you have a lot of room to do this part. We have a number of silicone mats that we will placing out pieces out on so they do not stick. Run your dough through the Fun Factory in this order: Plain, Blue, Black. If you don't do this, you will get dough that is multicolored.

Once you get all your pieces made, it's time to assemble. Start with the bottom of the picture and build up. Take your time and make sure that each pixel lines up. Square the cookie each row to make sure you are making a consistent shape. I also gently pressed the new layer to the previous layer.

Wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for at least 4 hours - I left mine overnight.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Remove your cookies from the freezer to a cutting board. Cut the cookie block in half to see how you did!

Slice cookies and place on a sheet pan prepped with a silicone mat. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until light golden brown. Transfer to a cooking rack and Enjoy!

We hope you enjoyed this re-do of our previous 8-bit recipe. Just remember to take your time.

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This is a really fun craft that can add a lot of fun to a game room or a kid's bedroom. It's made by gluing together bunch of one inch wooden blocks together to make your favorite 8-bit characters. For this, we made Link and an Octorok.

Gear!
Lots of 1 inch wooden blocks - we got ours here!
Wood Glue
Damp Cloth
Paint and Paint Brushes
Spray Polyurethane

Quest!
First we decided our designs. We did this by simply Googling Original Zelda in Images and selecting designs that were easy to divide into pixels.

Once you have divided your picture up, count the number of blocks you will need. We laid our blocks out and arranged them. The blocks had different colors and grains of the wood, so take your time to make it nice.

Glue the blocks together and wipe any excess glue off with a damp cloth. Let dry completely.

Paint Time! Paint your blocks the way you like. Tip: If you are doing Link, Zelda, or other Hylian character, leave their skin unpainted. You may have to paint other areas more than one coat.

When completely dry, spray with polyurethane - again, two or three coats are recommended.

Attach a picture hanger on the back and hang on the wall. Tada!

We hope you enjoyed this little side quest into the craft closet.

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I subscribe to Rosanna Pansino on YouTube. She gave a great demonstration on how to make 8-bit cookies. She did a Tetris design and it turned out really neat. Here is link for her episode is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYT7bDajEvw

So I thought, why not? I can do this. So I went to Target and spent $5 on a new Play-doh Fun Factory and began my quest. . .

Get the Printable Version of this Recipe Here!

I first made sugar cookies. She used a bag mix, but I made them from scratch. It's a basic recipe, nothing special. Here's my recipe:

Sugar Cookies:

2/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups AP flour

Quest:
Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and mix to combine. Scrap the bowl. Add milk, baking powder, salt, vanilla. Mix together, then add flour. You know have a basic sugar cookie dough. Here's where the math comes in.

Math Involved in Figuring out the Pixels

I divided up the dough according to the pie chart into Nude, Yellow, Green, Brown & Blue. I used cake frosting food coloring to dye the cookie dough. I used disposable gloves and mixed the dough and dye in my hands. Wrap each piece of colored dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, I lined cookie sheets with waxed paper. I put the dough one color at a time through the Fun Factory - this is highly therapeutic. Put the dough back in the frig for about 10 minutes.

Using the graph above. start assembling from the bottom up. Take your time and make sure the pixels are aligned. When you have assembled your block, place it in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Slice your cookies into 1/4 inch cookies and bake for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Now this being my first time taking on such a intricate design, I found that I have to be careful with the amount for dividing. For example, I had too much yellow for the shield and not enough brown for Link's head. I also should have used a more contrasting blue color since it doesn't show off the green like I would have liked. This cookie is a little misshapen because it is an end cookie, but it showed the design the best.

I will try again to make these cookies. I think the first time is always a learning process for everyone, so don't get discouraged. Definitely let the dough go back in the fridge before you build. I may not have let mine sit long enough. My husband is a mathematician, so I definitely will get him to help me with dividing the dough next time.

Get the Printable Version of this Recipe Here!

Thank you so much Rosanna Pansino for sharing this idea!