iD Blog Author: Josh

Hi Everyone! This blog is a Part II to my Ms. Pacman pizza blog. After making my Mrs. Pac-Man pizza, I had an entire pizza crust so I decided to make the “ghosts” from the Ms. Pacman game!

Remember, never cook with out an adult present. I am no exception to this rule. Fortunately, my good friend, adult and former iD Tech UCLA director, Jeff was still around to help me out:

1) SHAPE THE CRUST
The difference between this and the Ms. Pac-Man Pie mainly the shape of the crust. Each pizza crust will yield two ghosts, so start by a cutting a line right down the diameter of the crust, thus halving it:

Next, make two vertical cuts on either side of the crust. How deep in to make the cuts will depend on the size of your crust, the distance from the edge should be about 20% the width of the pie. Then, to round out the top a bit, shave a bit off of the edges:

PROTIP – Don’t waste food! Dip the excess dough in the sauce you are making while you wait for the pizza to bake – yum!
Next cut out three triangular shapes from the bottom of the pizza:

(again, an example of “real life” subtractive 3D modeling, a modeling method taught at our 3D animation camps)

And repeat on the other half of the pizza.

2) MAKE THE SAUCE

Next is time for the sauces, unlike Ms. Pac-Man, we actually have some options other than making an Alfredo “White” Pizza depending on which ghost(s) you want to make:

Blinky – the red ghost – Just as I was about to stir up some red food coloring I realized that I could just use the most fundamental of all pizza ingredients – tomato sauce! A pizza that only has tomato sauce as a topping is called a “tomato pie” (my favorite, a Philly tradition), however as we’ll be adding mozzarella slices for the eyes, this will be a “margarita” pizza.

Pinky – the pink (duh) ghost – for this we can use an “blush” sauce which is usually used for pasta, typically gnocchi and ravioli. A blush sauce is a mixture of tomato sauce and Alfredo (more or less). Refer to my Ms. Pacman blog for an Alfredo recipe or just use your favorite off the shelf!

Sue (or Clyde in the orignal Pac-Man) the orange ghost – for orange, you can also use a blush sauce however , you’ll want to vary your ratio of tomato : Alfredo sauce. You’ll want to use more Alfredo sauce and possibly even add some cheddar.

Inky – The blue ghost – No “natural” options here. Time to get our the blue food coloring! To achieve light blue a little bit of color goes a long way. Fill a small bowl with Alfredo and stir, stir, stir:

Once the sauce is made, pour the sauce on slowly and smooth it out with a knife or spoon, remember to leave room around the edges:

I decided to make Blinky and Inky.

3) ADD DETAIL

Next, for the ghosts eyes. You’ll need a tube of mozzarella. Cut down a slice of it into a rectangular shape:

BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN USING KITCHEN KNIVES AND ALWAYS HAVE AN ADULT PRESENT

Next, simply cut a black olive in half and place each half in the corner of each eye:

4) BAKE THE PIE!
Now it is time to bake! Preheat the oven 450 degrees and let Ms. Pacman bake for about 10-15 minutes, checking frequently as cooking time will vary depending on what kind of crust you are using.n While you are waiting, you should get some fresh air and do something outside, like gardening:

DO NOT LEAVE AN OVEN UNATTENDED! MAKE SURE YOUR PARENTS ARE WATCHING THE OVEN WHILE YOU GARDEN!

6) TIME TO EAT!!!
Another master piece! Now let’s eat those ghosts like we were Pac-Man!

Hey guys! I know these types of videos are all over the web but this one comes from my good friend and guitar prodigy, Gabe Deutsch and it is pretty rockin’:

Learn more about the Mario Bros. Theme song here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._theme

Learn about it’s composer, Koji Kondo, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dji_Kond%C5%8D

Rock on Gabe!

As promised, here is the long anticipated Ms. Pacman Pizza recipe.  The preparation for this is a bit less intensive than my Pacman cookies and one has the option of using prepared bread, sauce etc… So sit back and learn how to make a pizza that even the Mario brothers would be proud of.

First, do not cook or use the oven without an adult present!!!  As I am no exception to this rule I asked my adult friend, former iD Tech UCLA Director, Jeff to come and supervise me:

First you need to make or buy pizza crusts.  I can guarantee you that the whole throwing the pizza dough in the air thing would not have ended well for me, so I simply bought some pizza crust:

As alfredo sauce is white, it takes up food coloring really well so we’ll be making this an alfredo, white pizza. Here is a great recipe for alfredo that I found:

2 tablespoons butter

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 dash ground black pepper

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons grated Romano cheese

Melt the butter in your sauce pan then mix in the other ingredients and stir until they are all mixed in.  I recommend a low heat and make sure to take it off the heat before it browns.

Next, you’ll be using food coloring to achieve the ubiquitous Ms. Pacman yellow color.  I started off adding the food coloring conservatively:

But that just wasn’t cutting it so I added a bit more:

And that didn’t work either so I just went nuts and kept dripping it in until I achieved the color I needed, be prepared to use about quarter to a third of a standard bottle:

Stir thoroughly until the color is uniform:

Then carefully pour on to the pizza:

I spend a lot of time trying to smooth out the sauce and distribute it evenly around the edges and throughout the pie.  Make sure that the sauce contours the crust otherwise Ms. Pacman won’t look properly round.

Next, there are several toppings we need to include to distinguish this pie as “Ms. Pacman” as opposed to simply “Pacman”. Those items, along with the ingredients you’ll need are;

A bow – Roasted red pepper slices and a tomato slice

A beauty mark – A black olive

Eye liner / eye shadow – Several sliced black olives and half of a green olive

Lipstick – 2 quarters of a tomato slice

Also, arranging items on a circular plane can be a bit confusing so I’ve provided a layout guide to demonstrate how Ms. Pacman is arranged.  As you can see, the edges of her bow can be used to approximate the placement of her various design items:

As we are using the bow as the reference point for the rest of her details, we should start with that.  For the sides of the bow we’ll be using a bouquet of roasted red peppers.  Buy ‘em that way or roast ‘em yourself.

Note: BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN USING KITCHEN KNIVES AND ALWAYS HAVE AN ADULT PRESENT.

Cut them in half and lay  them out flat.  Cut around the edges to try and achieve this shape:

Make six and arrange three on each side in second quadrant of the pie (using the center of the pie as your origin),  loosely arranged around a line that follows:

y = x + b, where b = the radius of your pizza crust:

Next, cut a thin slice of tomato and place it at the intersection of the following lines:

y = x + b (b = the radius of your pizza) and y = -x

That’s a pretty bow!

Next up is the beauty mark, which will be a whole black olive.  For its placement, find the intersection of x = b/2 * -1 and y = b/2 * -1, where b is, again the radius;

Next is the eye shadow. Carefully prepare several black olive slices (I used 5) and half of a green olive.  We will place the green olive first and then arrange the black olive slices around it.

Place the green olive at the intersection of y axis and the point along the tomato slice with the most negative value:

Finally, we will place the lips. Before we do, we have to determine the angle of the slice that will be removed from the pie to create her mouth.  We are looking to achieve a 45 degree angle, I used pieces of spaghetti to help me approximate.  Once it looks right to you, put your slices in place:

And it is time to bake!  Preheat the oven to bake at 450 degrees and let Ms. Pacman bake for about 10-15 minutes, checking frequently as cooking time will vary depending on what kind of crust you are using.  While you are waiting for it to bake, you should do something fun like playing hide-and-go-seek:

What I love most about this recipe is that it is not actually complete until you’ve eaten one of the pieces.   If you used spaghetti as guides, the lines should still be there. Cut carefully and go over the cut several times, we need this to be clean! (Once again an example of “subtractive 3D modeling“)

All done!

Happy holidays!  If you try any of my recipes, please send me pictures, I’d love to post them!

At iD Tech Camps our students learn how to make video games.  But today, I’m going to teach you how to make cookies, based on video games.  Specifically, Pacman cookies.  This post will be a step-by-step tutorial of how to make Pacman themed cookies.

First, do not attempt to cook or use the oven without an adult present!!!!!  As I am no exception to this rule,  I asked my adult friend Charlie to come supervise me.

Before getting your hands dirty, you are going to need the proper cookie cutters to make the shapes.  Unfortunately, actual Pacman cookie cutters do not exist so you’ll need to improvise.  There are two different shapes you need to create, the “ghost” shape and the “Pacman” shape.

For the ghost shape, simply find a tulip shaped cookie cutter and rotate it 180 degrees (or just turn it upside down).  Charlie demonstrates:

For the Pacman shape you will start with a simple circle shape and then use any “V” shaped cookie cutter to subtract a portion of the dough.  For those of you learning 3D modeling, this is very similar to “subtractive modeling” when working with polygons.  I found that this “house” shape worked nicely:

Once you have the cookie cutters gathered you will need the following cooking supplies;

Sugar Cookies:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Icing:
1 egg white
2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
Various food paste colors
Mini chocolate chips

Tools:
Plastic bags
Baking Tray
Scissors
Spray-Oil
Butter Knife

Or you can just cheat on the sugar cookies (like I did) and buy some pre-made dough.  Once the dough is ready, lay it out and begin to make shapes;

I found that transferring the shapes from the cutting board to the baking tray was very difficult, so you are best off creating the shapes directly on the baking tray.  Make sure to spray it down with oil first.  I recommend removing the excess dough while the stencil is still applied, as demonstrated below.

And time for Pacman:

Well done!  These are all the shapes we need for representing the characters of Pacman:

Now it is time to bake the cookies.  Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and cook for about 10-12 minutes, check frequently as cooking time can vary.  While you are waiting try and partake in something productive, such as playing music:

Now the cookies are baked.

Next up is making the icing.  Combine 1 egg white, 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of corn syrup and powdered sugar and give a good stir.

Once the texture is consistent we are ready to add the color.  There are 5 colors you’ll need for the characters.  Between a set of “regular” and “neon” food coloring dyes, we had almost all the colors we needed, here is the breakdown:

Combine red and yellow to create orange, don’t forget to save some icing for the color white.

To mix the color in, we will spoon parts of the icing into plastic bags, about 2-3 heaping spoonfuls should do for each color, make sure to ration properly so you don’t run out.  Once in the bag, add drops of food coloring and kneed the icing within the bag until the color is even.  I found that bold colors such as red required many drops, whereas lighter ones like blue and pink required few.

Once your colors are ready, cut small (like REALLY small) holes in the corner of each bag:

Then drizzle the icing over the cookie.  Go very light on the icing and use a butter knife or spoon to spread it out.   Start off EXTREMELY light, I can’t stress this enough.

Next up we will have to make the eyes for the ghosts, but we need to let this icing dry first.  Put a few dabs of icing on the plate and test with your finger as a reference for whether or not the cookie icing is dry.  While waiting, you should probably exercise a bit as you are about to eat some cookies:

Now that the icing is dry it is time for the eyes.  The whites of the eyes will simply be some left-over uncolored icing (make sure to save some) and the pupils will be chocolate chips.   You’ll want to offset the position of the “whites of the eye” and compliment them by where you position the chocolate chips.  Remember go light on the icing, when you press down the chocolate chip, you will spread out the white icing:

All done!  Have a little fun with it!  We made a maze with the leftover icing!

BIG UPS to Helvetica from http://www.snackordie.com for the original recipe.   Tune in next week for Ms. Pac-Man Pizza!!!!!!

Anyone knows that at iD Tech Camps our camp staff is all about having fun, and our corporate staff is no exception!  Every year Halloween is a big event in our main office and throughout our nationwide satellite offices. Here are some highlights of our costumes:

It’s me as the Big Bad Wolf!

The Ingram-Cauchi family (our founders!) as Little Bo Peep and her Flock of Sheep

Patrick from Client Services as a Karate Master!

Joy and her family as a Star Wars menagerie including Luke (in-Jedi-training), Yoda, Princess Leia and an adorable Jawa

Jimmy from the Web Dept. as Fred Flintstone!

Dwayne from Client Services as “Gumdrop Head”!

Brother-sister duo Kate from Human Resourses and Dylan from Field Support as 50’s Girl and Roger Rabbit

Nova from Administrative Services as a Peacock!

And I just can’t get enough of myself!

That does it for Halloween ‘09.  I can’t wait for next year!