Fall is my favourite season for a lot of reasons. Cozy sweaters and vibes, staying warm inside as the leaves start falling, rainy days. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also talk about my fall food obsession.
I’m a sucker for all the flavours of fall, from cinnamon and baked apple to pumpkin and nutmeg and everything in between. The last time I did Blogtober, I talked about my favourite gaming-friendly fall snackies, so this time, I figured I’d talk about some geek-inspired ones that I haven’t necessarily tried yet, but plan to this season!
So here are the autumn gastronomy adventures I’m hoping to have this year.
Butterbeer cupcakes
Source: In Bloom Bakery
Butterbeer has always been both a favourite and an unattainable mission for me. After all, we’ll never really know what it was supposed to taste like—and though I really love the flavour I’ve found, it still leaves me wondering what could be different.
Though I’ll almost definitely be making a nice batch of Butterbeer this year, I couldn’t help my curiosity at discovering that Butterbeer cupcakes are also a thing. Maybe I’ll have to try them together to compare!
Second breakfast hand pies
Source: An Unexpected Cookbook
Full disclosure, bears aren’t the only ones who like to prepare for winter with extra meals. Like a hobbit, I can appreciate a solid second meal of the morning—which, by the way, is a category of its own in themed cookbooks, and tends to be more portable food that you can take with you on your daily missions.
I’ve tried making hand pies before, and it was a little bit of an adventure since I tried using a flakier dough than I should have—but for pork and apple hand pies, I will happily try again!
Coffee biscuits
Source: The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Cookbook
When I was leveling up my gatherers through Shadowbringers, a huge part of me loved how heavily cafe-themed the food was. I went through countless coffee biscuits on my missions around Kholusia and Lakeland trying to complete my leves.
And when I realized that they included those coffee biscuits in the Final Fantasy XIV cookbook, I knew it had to make the list for fall goodies. After all, it fits all my original criteria for being a gaming-friendly snack—while being a gaming-inspired one at the same time!
Pumpkin pasties
Source: In Bloom Bakery
I accidentally discovered this tasty-looking recipe in my adventures through Butterbeer cupcake land, and although pumpkin pasties were the dessert that I always thought sounded the least appealing in the books, I couldn’t pass them by in real life.
Like the hand pies, I expect these may be a little bit more of an adventure, though I’m going to stick to regular dough this time.
Dwarven mulled wine
Source: Heroes’ Feast
This warming recipe from the Dungeons and Dragons cookbook is a staple of mine, and tends to mysteriously disappear at our fall and winter sessions pretty quickly. Naturally, it’s going to make another appearance this year!
One thing I’m going to do a little differently though is switch up the type of liquor I use. It calls for a warm brandy, but I never have that on hand, so it usually just ends up being whatever I have, and that can make it taste harsher than I think it’s supposed to. So I’m going to stick to the script this time!
