Skyrim Sweet Rolls

A while back, I discovered a wonderful fantastic blog called Gourmet Gaming.  The girl who runs it posts a recipe every Wednesday.  Unlike most food blogs, each recipe must be for a food featured in a video game.  Every recipe is an original creation by her because, with very few exceptions, video games don't include nutrition facts and ingredients.  She does a phenomenal job recreating foods no one has ever seen before, let alone tasted.  Personally, my favorite part of each entry is seeing the side-by-side comparison of her food with a screenshot from the game, such as:

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - Spark Lemon

Yoshi's Cookie - Yoshi Cookies

And of course...

Portal - The Cake Is A Lie

But the food that I was most excited to make was from Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  Mainly because I had fallen in love with the Elder Scrolls universe when Kyle and Wil had me make a character in Oblivion a few years ago and roam around the gorgeous scenery and meet all the fantastic creatures.  It's like WoW on steroids, with prettier graphics and more features.  And then Kyle got Skyrim when it came out in November, and I fell in love all over again.  With the sweeping mountainous scenery, the animation and interactions with the people, and the food!  Food fit for a viking, which Kyle loved.  So I was joyfully overwhelmed when Gourmet Gaming posted Skyrim recipes.  And not just the sweet rolls, but an entire Skyrim meal!  I had to save up my gold to get all the fixin's for it, but I ended up making it just before Christmas. (Yes, I'm aware that Christmas was many days ago.  But I'm actually, legitimately going to try to post once a week again, yay!)

But let's start out with the sweet rolls.  This was dessert, but I made them first, because, as I suspected, they took the longest to make.  Many steps.  None of which I had ever really done before.  But so worth it.

Blueberry Cheesecake Muffins (Times Two!)

Of course I had to make my first recipe post about muffins.  The title of this blog is not just an attempt at formulating a clever phrase that may be catchy one day (although that is certainly part of it); it is also an expression of my love for muffins, particularly chocolate chip ones.  Ever since I was young, I have had an affinity for these lovely baked goods.  I ate a muffin nearly every single morning for about a decade.  I never tire of them.  There's something so satisfying about the big kind especially, with the large, mushroomy top that you can pop off with little effort, revealing a soft, moist cylinder of cake underneath.

So, for these reasons, I knew I had to incorporate muffins into my first real post somehow.  I have actually never made muffins myself before.  I have always bought them from my local deli, bakery, and/or grocery store.  But recently, I acquired quite a lot of muffin mix from my local Winn Dixie.  (I say "acquired" rather than "bought," because Winn Dixie had a deal going on through which I got 6 packages of muffin mix fo' free when I bought 3 boxes of General Mills cereal, which we needed anyway.  Love when that happens!)  So I thought I'd take advantage of all the muffin makings I had (and still have) stashed away in my pantry.  But a blog post about adding milk to muffin mix is not very interesting.  So I thought I'd do a wee experiment: I'd make one batch of muffins with the mix, and I'd make one batch from scratch, both the same kind of muffin, and I'd see which tasted better and why.