You’ve seen the banana bread fields. The bread froze and thawed beautifully. Now, my fellow geeks, you need the rest of the Catan map.
I’ve had a crazy busy weekend. Making four kinds of original bread and assembling them all into an edible, playable Settlers of Catan map somehow absorbed the time that would’ve gone into posting recipes.
This is why I can’t have any kind of time freezing device. No time turner from Harry Potter, no magical pocket watches that leave everything else frozen. I would totally abuse that technology. What’s that? I have a 6 p.m. deadline? Excuse me while I enjoy a hearty nap first, catch up on my reading, eat a sandwich, and do every ounce of work that doesn’t require my frozen technological devices. To outside observers, I’d age at four times the rate of my friends, just from naps alone. Wonderful, glorious naps.
Without the aid of any time stopping devices, I still conjured these four original bread recipes, cut them into hexes, and assembled a playable Settler’s of Catan Map. If you want to do the same at home, you’ll need:
Mountains = Chocolate bread topped with toasted hazelnuts
Forest = Basil pesto bread
Pasture = Jalapeno cornbread
Hills = Maraschino Cherry bread
Fields = Banana Bread
I picked up a set of 6 hexagon cookie cutters in graduated sizes for $13 at Amazon.com. If you want to make Catan maps, I can’t recommend these highly enough. You can (and should) buy the official Settlers of Catan cookie cutter from Mayflower Games for $8. Theirs is the exact same size as a Settlers of Catan tile, making it perfect for edible, playable decorated shortbread cookies.
The slightly smaller generic hexagon cookie cutter worked better for cutting into breads. I made all five of my loaves in standard 9 inch round cake pans. That gave me 5 hexes per loaf, or as I like to think of it, 4 usable hexes and a snack. If you want to use a larger pan – say, because you need to feed your friends before they decimate your pretty map – make sure to increase proportions in all the recipes. Otherwise, you’ll have sad, thin bread-like wafers instead of fluffy bread hexes of tasty goodness.
I chose to arrange my edible map on a cheap, $5, grey-blue teflon pizza pan. Against the colored breads, the grey-blue surface did a good job evoking oceans. It was also super easy to transport to and from the table, and was easy to spin around in place so people could see the board from every angle. It may seem like an extra expense, but hey, when you’re done playing Settlers of Catan on it, you have a bonus extra large pizza pan. Everybody wins.
If you’re ambitious enough to really actually play your edible board (you know you want to), you’re going to need a few extra supplies. No one wants to rub their bread crumb coated mitts all over your pretty Catan pieces. I recommend:
Robber = Black Mission Fig
Roads = Sliced Red, Yellow, Orange and Green Bell Peppers (or colored pocky sticks)
Cities and Settlements = Toothpicks taped with appropriate colored flags
Sure, you could scrape up appropriate foods for the cities and settlements. I thought of using cherry tomatoes, cubed carrots, celery and bananas, but are your guests really going to care that you spent a ton of extra cash on edible colored garnishes? No. They want to play a fun game with you then chow down on tasty geek breads.
Stay tuned for recipes to go with each of these breads. Confidentially, the maraschino cherry bread disappeared first, followed by the basil pesto bread. The chocolate (which I thought was fantastic) came in third, with the banana bread in fourth and the jalapeno cornbread at a very close fifth. Keep this in mind when deciding if you want to make an extra pan in order to keep the hungry hordes from eating your board before you have a chance to dominate the world of Catan.
___
You can find recipes for all of the breads in Wood for Sheep: The Unauthorized Settlers Cookbook.
If this isn’t enough Catan-tastic edible awesomeness for you, check out these book preview posts:
Settlers of Catan Breakfast Bar
Settlers of the Mediterranean (Map)
Welcome to South Catan Y’all
Settlers of the Cold Salad
All-American Meatloaf Map
Personalized Settlers Nacho Bar
Settlers of Catan City Pot Pies
Settlement of Catan Basil and Mozzarella Bites