Let’s Talk Tea – A Halloween Round Up

Skill Up Skillet’s October has been the busiest yet! With five, count ’em, FIVE Nightmare Before Christmas themed recipes, a couple of fandom tea reviews from CuppaGeek, and a Walking Dead Bloody Brain Jello Shot recipe with a bang… needless to say you’ll have plenty of fare to choose from for this year’s festivities. We’ve even been interviewed and reviewed by two different sites! Let’s do a Halloween Round Up!

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Starting off with one of the blog’s biggest achievements to date: Patty from Chocolate Chip Studio interviewed Skill Up Skillet for her Featured Foodie Friday series! According to Patty:

If you’re into gaming, you are absolutely going to LOVE this week’s Featured Foodie! When I first met Leisel and learned more about her food perspective, I thought, ‘WOW! To combine gaming with food is probably one of THE most original food blogs I’ve seen yet.’

Blogging since 2014, Leisel is just awesome and I love that she makes it fun!

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Skill Up Skillet also received a favorable review from Jason of Opinionated Man. You can read his review HERE.

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We also teamed up with Nichole of CuppaGeek for a couple of Halloween-y fandom tea reviews. Nichole does not disappoint! Check out her review of Walking Dead fandom tea Kiss My Crossbow and a Nightmare Before Christmas inspired Pumpkin King Tea.

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Without further ado, on to the first Skill Up Skillet Halloween Round Up!

Sonic the Hedgehog Cheesecakes

Admittedly, this is one of those “Because I Can” things. But really, who doesn’t love cheesecake? Or Sonic, for that matter? Sonic the Hedgehog was one of my all time favorite video games growing up. By now, you know that means I also suck at it. However, sources indicate that it’s really bloody entertaining to watch me play as it involves a lot of inventive cursing, squealing, ragequitting on the water levels… you get the idea. Heck, I even have Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on my smartphone. It’s that good.

That said, before you get started with this one… pop a bottle of your favorite dessert wine in the fridge to chill. This recipe is that rich, that decadent, that velvety… MMMmmmmmm. Legitimately, I would pay money for this at a restaurant and be completely satisfied. I made these with fruit and pie fillings but you can also do a plain style cheesecake and be completely happy. I’m not one to judge. In fact, I’m doing that later today after the springform pans are washed. Note that these are going to take a little more time as it’s not a ‘chill and serve’ recipe, but these are so worth the extra effort. Ready? Let’s go!

Triple T(h)reat Thursday: Candy Crush Candies ft. Orange Lozenge, Green Gum Squares, and Color Bombs!

Press the Easy Button – Each of these recipes are Skill Level 1!

That’s right, it’s a triple feature today!

I’m going to be showcasing three separate recipes for three very different candies featured in the popular game, Candy Crush: orange lozenges, green gum squares, and chocolate color bombs. Admittedly, I don’t play this game, myself. I belong to the “I’m sorry. Freemium gaming destroys lives. I lost my father to Candy Crush.” crowd after a short stint playing the Family Guy mobile game. Fun, but more time consuming than it should be, and too tempting to want to spend money on it. Also, if you got that reference, we should totally be friends. You’re cool.

And so, while I don’t play the game, I do have the capacity to appreciate it. We’ll go ahead and pay tribute here.

Ready? Let’s go.

By Fan Request: The Lord of the Rings ‘Lembas Bread’

While in the midst of my trials and tribulations with the Senzu Beans I was contacted by reader (and coworker!) Katie L. from Cincinnati, Ohio. She came upon a recipe for Lembas Bread from LOTR in one of her feeds and thought it would be awesome if I made it. I couldn’t have agreed more and set to work on the post she sent:

I have no idea where this came from. Dear reader, if this is your recipe please contact me so that I may give you proper credit.

This is another one of those easy-peasy recipes as long as you know how to use measuring cups and spoons. The recipe calls for an electric hand mixer but if you don’t have one your bread won’t suffer for it.

Ready? Let’s go.

Skyrim Sweet Rolls – Insert Applicable Meme Here

I have a confession to make: There will be no Senzu Bean Jelly Beans this week. At the time of this post there have been five failed batches of beans. I’d like to believe that each batch is a step closer to the desired result. It seems that there aren’t many decent how-to videos for making jelly beans around. I think in the end it should work out pretty well, but it is just not happening this week.

As a substitute, let’s sidetrack to one of my favorite games: Skyrim. One of the most iconic items from the game is the sweet roll. I actually had all of the ingredients on hand and didn’t need to make a special trip to the store, which is a nice change of pace. Today’s recipe is borrowed from Instructables with a small tweak at the end. Additionally, in place of the usual glaze Neo was craving some cream cheese icing. I’m inclined to agree with him here. The glaze/icing in the original sweet roll just seems more… substantial. No offense, Instructables. I’m sure your glaze is absolutely fantastic and I’ll probably try it someday. I use the cream cheese icing recipe from Food Network; it’s always yielded great results and has great taste. Links to these recipes can be found at the end of the post.