As always, the most important question of Nerdstock is what nerdy desserts I am going to bring. It’s always hard to top the year 1 cupcake challenge, or the year 2 dragon, but I do try. There were the zombie cookies, which I liked a lot, but this year I decided to try for a more game-themed culinary experience. After all, Nerdstock is the annual gathering of the finest nerds known to my brother-in-law, a four day extravaganza out in the woods where we play board games, videos games, lawn games, mind games, and whatever else we can find to play. So we needed gaming desserts.
The first brilliant idea I had was to make cupcakes and top them with game pieces from prominent board games that I had carved out of marshmallows. Obviously this was a terrible idea, and I abandonded it quickly. That was way too hard. But we did have some game-piece shaped gummies that I used to top the treats, and that worked out well. But then I had my second brilliant idea, and this time it was actually brilliant. Dice Krispie Treats.
Yeah, that’s right, you heard me. Dice Krispie Treats. Delicious treats cut into cubes and frosted with chocolate chips added to make them look like dice. And as a bonus? They were so frickin’ good! These things did not last the weekend, even though I made two trays worth.
But lest you think I would stop there, I also decided to make cookies shaped and frosted to look like playing cards. Also a terrible idea. But I figured out what a bad idea that was in time to stop myself. Instead, I hit upon the idea to make Scrabble tile cookies. The trick being that I needed to make them into squares, I considered shaping squares before baking, but would they hold their shape? But if I baked them into a pan as one giant cookie and then cut them, would they crumble apart? I had to make my own recipe. Which I did. I think they turned out okay.
So we had the snacks, we had the guys, we had the games, and we had the storms. Yeah, the weather was not great. We didn’t get to all of our planned outdoor activities. But we did add in an escape room for the first time, created by my brother-in-law and solved by the rest of us with minutes left on the clock. We played the Nerdlywed Game, to see how much we really know about each other. We competed for a spot in the board game finals, we played trivia (much of which was just bad puns and opinions apparently), and we rode out the storm. Until the transformer exploded and we lost power.
I’m not sure which is more nerdy, ten guys in the woods playing board games all weekend, or five guys parked on the side of the road because they finally found a spot on the mountain with reception and could use their phones again for a few minutes. Eh, maybe it’s a toss-up. But luckily there was a back-up generator that provided weak and flickering lights for 7 hours until the power was restored, and we all had an adventure. Of course now I have to think about what desserts to make for next year…
