Gamer Fuel: DewRito Cupcakes

In the first of this new series on Geeky/Gamer eats, I'll be attempting to recreate the gametastic Dorito/Mt. Dew cupcakes sold at 4Rivers Smokehouse in Orlando, Fl.

I scoured the internet but couldn't find anyone who had duplicated the recipe, but I did find this Mt. Dew cupcake recipe from The Geeky Hostess, which I worked from as a base.

In an interview with John Rivers, owner of the aforementioned 4Rivers Smokehouse, Mr. Rivers advised in making one's own soda-flavored cakes, the use of a soda reduction was key.

Lovely ingredients!

Making a soda reduction takes quite a bit longer than I realized. You'll wanna use at least two or three times the amount you want to end up with, about 3 cups. Start by bringing your soda to a nice rolling boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1-2 hours until it becomes a syrup.

Stir stir stir

When done, mix 1/2 cup of your syrup reduction, and two eggs into your white or lemon cake mix (I used lemon for mine).

Throw that bad mama jama into your cupcake cups, filling to 1/3 full.

Bake at 350 for the time specified on your mix box (about 20 minutes) or until a toothpick/skewer inserted into the middle of cakes comes out clean.

For an extra kick of flavor, you can top each hot cupcake with a light drizzle of reserved syrup, creating a nice glaze.

While those babies cool, go ahead and start on your icing. You can either use a store-bought icing and add a tablespoon of Mt. Dew syrup and a squeeze each of lemon and lime, or you can go the from-scratch route, as I did.

Mix up your butter until it's nice and fluffy(ish), then add your lemon, lime, and Mt. Dew. Mix 'er up again, and start adding your powdered sugar a cup at a time until you get to the consistency you want.

When your cupcakes are nice and cool, top each one with icing and then just roll the edges in your Doritos.

(NOTE: You'll wanna do this right before serving, as the Doritos chips on your cupcakes will go stale rather quickly)

All in all, I'd say the flavor is... unique. I'm not in love with the icing recipe, as it had a very strong powdered sugar taste. The cake was good, and as noted the Doritos need to be added shortly before you're actually planning on eating them. :)

Happy noming!

Wonderful photography by HylianxPrincess of our sister-blog (literally) Ctrl Alt Petite.

A Reflection on the Nature of Comedy

I saw an ad for The Comedy Awards, which apparently began last year. Almost immediately, it struck me as really odd to have a big cable TV (it's a Comedy Central jam) awards show for comedians. Like it's contradictory to the very nature of comedy.

Historically, comedians have always been the kind of people you don't want to keep on display out in the daylight. You'd go and see them late at night, in an ill-lit, smokey club, and the whole scene had an amazing underground element to it. Comedians, just as brilliant and creative as any other artist, were regarded as less worthy of being recognized for the unique genius they possess. But that's okay. They fed on that. They were the underground, the drug-addled, alcoholics reflecting openly all the stuff everyone does in private, saying the dick lines it's in our nature as human beings to think, but socially unacceptable for us to say.

It was amazing, brilliant, and really filled a very specific void in our collective subconscious.

The entire comedy sub-culture seems to have been slowly creeping it's way into the mainstream since the 90's when open-mic nights started disappearing, and it's watering down the entire experience. Then there was another leap in the early 2000's when Dane Cook and Blue Collar Comedy Tour gained popularity, and now we've got this award show.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say every funny person, or even every professional comedian is some kind of a train-wreck of a human being. Although most of them will.

I have the pleasure of being friends with someone who has experience on the stand-up circuit, and one of the first things he said to me when I approached the subject was "most comedians have a very dark side". He continued, saying:

...My best friends that are comedians and that are actually good, have experienced so much more in life than most would. They are literally down for anything, any drug, any situation. They don't say no to anything, because regardless you can get a story or an experience out of it. Some of the stories that I've heard just bs'ing after a show, is 10x funnier than bits they do in their acts. You can't make that mainstream.

In all honesty, I'm not sure I could write a more accurate conclusion than that final line:

You can't make that mainstream.