Welcome back to Geeky Grub! This month, we’re celebrating the release of Banjo and Kazooie as part of Challenger Pack 3 for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate!
The series of Smash Bros. has a long history of bringing some of the biggest icons in gaming together to duke it out and Banjo-Kazooie are no exception to this. Banjo and Kazooie are legends in their own right; they are some of only a few ‘Mario’ series characters that belong to a rival company and therefore makes them unique in that regard. Their series was originally a Nintendo-exclusive franchise and then went on to Xbox platforms from then on.
Banjo-Kazooie is a platforming game known best for the titular characters collecting three things: Jigsaw Pieces to access new game worlds, Musical Notes to open doors and Honeycombs for restoring health. We chose to make a Greek-style honey cake in the shape of a honeycomb and complete with honey pooled in the middle. Sound like Honey Bear heaven? Then here’s what you’ll need:
- Honey, about half a cup
- All-Purpose Flour, 3 cups
- Eggs, 6
- Granulated Sugar, 2 cups
- Baking Powder, 2 teaspoons
- Butter, 1 whole stick
- Warm Milk, 1 cup
- Baking Soda, half a teaspoon
- Freshly-Squeezed Lemon Juice, 1 tablespoon
- Confectioner’s Sugar, 1 cup
- White chocolate candy melts, one bag or 12 ounces
- Heavy whipping cream, 4 oz
Preheat your oven to 350′ degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium-sized bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add your flour to the butter cream and mix by hand until it is mealy and sticky. Add the eggs one at a time mixing between each addition. Combine baking soda and the lemon juice into your new mixture and mix thoroughly. Finally, add together your baking powder and milk in a separate bowl, adding it to the batter gradually until all mixed well. Place this in a square or rectangular pan. (Hexagonal if you can find it is ideal for this. We could not find one ourselves so we had to fold ours over, fill it with frosting and cut it to shape. We have a template for this right below.)
(Because we used a long rectangular pan, we cut our cake in half and made it a layer cake. If you chose instead to use a square or hexagonal cake pan, you can skip this next paragraph.)
Next, we will make the filling that goes between layers. Combine 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar, 3 tbsp. of milk and 2 tbsp. of honey in a bowl and mix until it is stiff, but not set hard. Once your cake has finished baking, let it cool, then frost first layer, set second layer on top and secure in place with a few tall toothpicks .
From here, you’ll need to cut the cake into shape using the template above. Use a large, sharp knives this cake is pretty thick. We used the scraps from the cutting of the cake to create the borders so we could fill the cake basin with even more honey.
Finally, we’re going to create a white chocolate ganache to frost the top. Take your white candy melts and heat them for about 30-45 seconds in microwave, until just melty, but not completely melted. Combine this with your 4 oz. of heavy cream and let cool for about 20 minutes or until a firmer frosting like consistency has formed. Add some Wilton’s Buttercup Yellow and Wilton’s Copper Icing Color until it is a warm honey color, then begin to frost your cake, applying ganache in a thin layer, you can used a tiny bit of warm water to smooth ganache, but too much will ruin it so using it very sparingly. From here, let the cake set after being frosted for about 20 minutes. This is so the ganache will stiffen up a bit and not soak up the honey you will pour into the small basin in the middle of the cake.
This cake isn’t only good for celebrating a specific bear and bird’s introduction into the ultimate crossover game; it can be used for birthdays, gaming parties, or just an afternoon surprise for the kiddos . This Greek Honey Cake, plain makes for a great after-school snack as well, but if you follow this recipe exactly it has the added bonus of being themed after the most iconic bear and bird in gaming.
What do you think of the cake? Are you willing to give it a try? Are you or your kiddos excited for Banjo-Kazooie in Smash Ultimate? Most importantly, do you have any geeky food suggestions for us to give a whirl? Leave us your thoughts down below and be sure to drop your pictures down there too!
