Xbox 360 is Sweet

Earlier, I posted the recipe for some icing. While some gamers would be content with just a bowl of frosting, most of us prefer cake under all that icing. And since we gamers still need our energy drinks, this particular cake includes some fresh coffee!

Ingredients

* Butter, for greasing the pans
* 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
* 2 cups sugar
* 3/4 cups good cocoa powder
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee


Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Butter and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.

In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry.

With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

Add frosting. Eat cake. Go back to video games.

Xbox 360 Icing

Gamers love sugar. In fact, they need sugar. But even that store bought icing is too sugary for some gamers. So for those of you out there who want to have your cake and eat it, too, here is a much better, and simple, icing recipe! The ingredients are common kitchen items, but if you don't have them, they are pretty cheap. That way, you can save your money for more video games.

Ingredients

* 1 cup confectioners' sugar
* 2 teaspoons milk
* 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
* 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
* assorted food coloring

Directions

1. In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.

2. Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity.

Game Informer's Top Five

Ever have trouble deciding what to eat with your games? Looking for something somewhat healthy? Well lucky for us, Game Informer magazine published a list of their top five favorite gaming sandwiches!

Here they are!

1) Peanut butter and Jelly
2) Meatball Hoagie
3) Philly Cheesesteak
4) Grilled Cheese
5) Nutella and anything

These might not be the healthiest choicest, but they sure are better than a diet of energy drinks and greasy pizzas. Why should gamers care about this? Well, think about it. Aside from health issues, greasy foods make your hands too greasy, which results in a slippery controller. And the health issue isn't just for the female gamers out there. For you male gamers, watch what you eat! You don't want to end up as the stereotypical fat man in your mom's basement.

Mountain Dew: The Fuel of Champions

Back in the 1940s, Barney and Ally Hartman had no idea that their new sugary drink would become the fuel of gamers in years to come. Hell, at that time, they didn't even have games. Pong wasn't even around yet! By 1964, their citrus drink, which they called Mountain Dew after the slang term for moonshine, was circulating all over the USA. 43 years later, in an age of complex video games, Mountain Dew became the fourth best selling soft drink, just behind Coke, Pepsi, and Diet Coke, by targeting 12-30 year olds. Seeking a sugary and sweet drink, these 12-30 year olds, and the occasional 40 year old man in his mom's basement, flock to the various flavors of Mountain Dew, which at one time totaled 39 different variations. This plethora of flavors, resulting from video game advertising, sponsored games ranging from World of War Craft to the Halo series.

Personally, I hated Mountain Dew for a while. When I was a kid, I would always try to get a sugar high off the stuff. I'm sure it worked, but it made my teeth feel like they were wearing fuzzy bunny slippers. Years later, when I got back into gaming, I still couldn't get into Mountain Dew. Their catchy advertising campaigns didn't work on me. But a few weeks ago, when I was snowed in with nothing but a stack of Role Playing Games and my Xbox 360, I gave Mountain Dew another try. I didn't intent to give it this second chance, but I ended up with a whole two liter of the stuff after I ordered a pizza. I was $1.25 short of the needed total for delivery, so I decided to add on a drink. They didn't have Coke, or Dr. Pepper, or even root beer, so I settled for Mountain Dew, thinking, "What the hell. I don't have class this whole week. I can chug Mountain Dew and play games all night, and crash in the morning." And that's what I did.

I still am not a huge fan of this nuclear sludge colored pop, but as a gamer, I can't help but notice, and even appreciate the stuff. But today, most gamers I know choose different energy drinks to fuel their gaming. So what do you gamers think? Does Mountain Dew fuel your gaming? Does something else?

Play With Your Food

Eat. Drink. Play. That's all that matters to the gamer. Unfortunately, the only thing we gamers really do is, well, game. After leveling up, we should be pretty hungry. We should deserve a meal as large and balanced as the one fed to our characters before a quest. But after hours of exploring new realms and sinking blades into orcs, we stuff a few Doritos in our mouths and down it with some Mountain Dew. That's enough to fuel us into another night of gaming, so we keep doing it. Some gamers don't have the willpower to spend 12 hours gaming on only energy drinks, so they end up ordering a pizza or some other form of greasy take out.

Summed up, gamers don't eat well.

But does a gaming lifestyle need to lack decent food, or even food for that matter? Is there something, anything, that can fuel gamers while not taking too much time out of gaming? Are there cheap, but easy foods which won't leave our controllers covered in grease?

Play with Your Food looks into the foods of the gaming culture, food and gaming advertising, and the history and role of food in video games. So take a break from your gaming to have a snack and catch some news for gamers and foodies.