The Adventures of Laik the Wolf & Friends : Raiza's Pumpkin Pie

     An orange cat, dressed all in black with a pink and white apron tied around her waist, stepped onto the scene, a nervous expression painting her pretty face. "Hello—" she coughs, quickly clearing her throat, "Hello everyone, I'm Raiza the Cat. And I…" 
    Eclair, who was standing behind the camera, gave her the "move it along" gesture. 
    The duo stood in the kitchen of Eclair's 'home', which Raiza was positive was a remodeled apartment complex; the bottom floor at the very least.
    "Ahem… Sorry, I'm not used to this streaming thing. I need to the party I'm talking to…" 
    Eclair hit the "BRB" button on the streaming tool and stepped out from behind the camera, joining the nervous feline behind the counter.
    "Girl, I've heard you sing. No one with a voice—or voices—like yours is going to be shy in front of an audience. Is there anything I can do that could make this easier for you? My sub count is skyrocketing right now, believe it or not. Mobians LOVE festive streams, and your face, apparently."
    "M-My face?" Raiza's ears practically slapped her head as they fell back. "I-I don't know if I can do this, Clair. Let's just write a post for your blog and take pictures for that, okay?" The cat pleaded, but the bunny stonewalled her.
    "Nuh-uh, we're doing this. Look, I'll turn the chat screen towards you so you can see what the viewers are saying to you, okay?"
    "Where's the kitty?"
    "ECLAIR I LOVE YOU MARRY ME PLZ"
    A generous donation from viewer "bROOT XIV" flashed across the screen.
    "I mean, I could tilt the camera a bit so that only your chest is visible, but you've seen the sort of streams I do; my viewers aren't here for just my content, if you catch my drift."
    "F-Fine, okay. Just I don't know, make the actual chat bigger so I can read it okay?

    "Okay, and three, two…" Eclair counted down, hitting the button at One and reactivating the stream. The "BRB" image of a ball-shaped Eclair disappeared, replaced once again by the scene from Eclair's kitchen.

    "S-Sorry about that everyone. First time doing this and I struggle with talking to just a camera, but Eclair fixed it so I can see the chat now," Raiza waved, triggering an explosion of action in the chat. "Hi, yes, I can see you all now. Thank you for your kind words...Well, some of them that is. Yikes." 
    "Not many people know this, but I come from the Acorn Kingdom. I grew up in Knothole Village during the first war with Robotnik after he usurped the throne. Princess Sally and her Freedom Fighters had operated there and had carried out assaults, entirely unbeknownst to the village for the longest time."
    Raiza hefted two small pumpkins up onto the counter, setting them alongside various other ingredients, most obviously coming from the grocery market.
    "What I'm here to share with you all today, similar to the impromptu stream Laik held earlier, is a recipe for pumpkin pie that hails from Knothole Village itself; Where the autumn season and all of its flavors and splendor are celebrated each and every year." Raiza's words flowed more evenly as the stream went on, the cat's natural talent for performing cutting through the timid film that formed during her downtime.

    "Now, without further ado, I'm going to go over the ingredients and a brief step-by-step process to baking this Knothole favorite."

    INGREDIENTS

    1x pie crust
    3x eggs
    1x 15oz can of pumpkin
    3/4 cup sugar or your preferred sugar substitute
    1/4 cup dark brown sugar (can omit)
    1 tsp cinnamon
    1/2 tsp salt
    1/2 tsp ginger (or 1/4 if using more nutmeg)
    1/2 tsp nutmeg (or 1/4 if using more ginger)
    1/4 tsp Cloves
    3/4 cup evaporated milk (important to use exact measurement)

    Baking Time: 55 minutes

    Bring all of your ingredients together in whichever way you prefer while the oven heats to 425 degrees. Pour the mixed custard filling into the pie crusts, then bake for 55 minutes. Once done, open the oven door with the heat off to allow the pies to cool off in the heated cavity of the oven. Chill or serve warm!

 

"All right so, what you want to do is roll out your dough with your favorite rolling pin and place it in the pie pan of your choosing... But since Clair didn't have all the ingredients I needed, I'm opting for a pre-made dough today." Raiza sighs as she rolls out the obviously store-bought, lifeless-looking dough into the foil pan. 

 

"Take your pumpkin puree and dump it into your mixing bowl." Raiza shook the can of pumpkin vigorously until it made a sucking noise, then a plopping sound as it slid from the can. "I personally would have preferred fresh sugar pumpkins, but I was ordered not to touch these." Raiza gestured to the small pumpkins adorning the countertop and shrugged.

 

"You're going to bring your sweeteners to the party next. The recipe calls for the bear minimum since I and those from Knothole Village prefer a more mild, spicier pumpkin pie opposed to the sweeter variety. But it's all up to you and what your taste buds want." She wiggled her pink nose and smiled to the camera as she scooped two different sugars into the bowl. 

 

"Next in the pool are going to be the milk and eggs. I originally concocted this recipe using more milk. Like, an entire cup and a half of it, but found that it not only diluted the flavor of the pie itself, but made the custard too runny, so I cut it down to three-quarters of a cup. I may experiment a bit and scale that back a bit as well in the future, but for now, let's go with what works."

 

"Once the liquid ingredients, the pumpkin and the sugars have been mixed together, next will be the spices. And it is at this step where individual tastes will diverge; Do you like a spicier cake? If so, use a half a teaspoon of ginger and only a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg. You can bump up the cinnamon to a full tablespoon here as well if you wanted, it's really up to you--"
Eclair waved her hand to get the cat's attention, who, just like on their first road trip together to Central City, was getting lost in the performance! "Rize! Raizaaaaaa! Make one of them sweet, please!"
The cat smiled as she dropped another quarter cup of sugar into the custard before turning the mixer back on. 

 

"I hope you remembered to turn the oven on to 425 degrees before we started all this because I did." The cat's nose twitched as she took a break to read the chaos that was the chat. Occasionally, the moderator bot would highlight a message that seemed competently typed and show it on screen.
"DEDOG1944 said: Did u evur meet sally acorn"
Raiza read the message out loud, stumbling across the spelling error as she did. "Um, no, but I did meet Rotor the Walrus once or twice."
Eclair stepped up beside the cat, wiggling her two fingers in tandem with her ears. "Hey everyone, I just wanted to pop in real quick to say thank you to everyone coming out today to watch my friend's performance. You can tell she's just a little timid, but lemme' tell you, this cat's a natural born performer!" Eclair wrapped her arms around the cat, gripping the cat by her upper arms and shaking her.

 

The oven dinged, signaling to the duo that the optimal temperature had been reached. "Oh, it's time! Clair, grab one of the pies for me, would you?"
The cat and rabbit braved the hot air that bellowed out of the oven's cavity as the door swung open. They gingerly placed the two pies onto the second to bottom rack to avoid the tops of the pies being exposed to the broiler coils.

 

"And there you go. You let the pies sit in the oven for 55 minutes, untouched, until the custard sets and the tops of the pies are perfectly brown. Err, brown-er." Raiza smiled at the camera and waved as Eclair wrapped her arms around the cat one last time.
"All right, girl," the rabbit said, "It's time to bring it home!"
But Raiza did not know what the rabbit meant by that. "Bring it... home?"
"Yeah! Like, you gotta close the stream out with something witty, or alluring, or whatever!" 
"Uh, umm..." Raiza's ears fell flat, her eyes shifting about the room looking for a way out.
"I, um, I have... I have to pee, be right back!" The cat couldn't have run any faster if she had used Boost. Being put on the spot was not easy in the slightest.
Eclair laughed a deep, throaty and sincere laugh. Her large breasts wobbled against the loose fabric of her shirt and bra. "And there you have it, folks, Raiza the Cat's first appearance on my vlog since her makeover way back. I hope you all learned something today.
The rabbit shot the peace sign to her audience, then performed a little hop, giving her viewers one last look at her bouncing breasts before ending the stream.
"Happy Harvest Festival!" 

The Adventures of Laik the Wolf & Friends : Laik's Yum-Yum

 

 H'lo everyone, I hope my fellow Mobians and those joining me from across the multiverse and beyond are having a good day. I'm coming at you live today from ElcairDessert's studio here in Memoria village, located in the scenic Brick Hedge Zone. I'm Laik the Wolf, who some of you might know as the guy that helped rescue Sonic during the war with the Egg Empire a while back.

Today, I'm bringing you an easy, no-bake dessert that you can make any time of the year, for any occasion, with any filling of your choosing! It's called  Yum-Yum, and it's a recipe from Earth.

Taking a break from my adventure across the worlds, I thought it would be a good time to introduce Mobians to this dessert and maybe make it the staple of your holiday table going forward.

These are the ingredients you're going to need, and you can find these or similar products at any grocery store here on Mobius(I know, I've looked)

INGREDIENTS:
3x blocks of cream cheese
4x tubs of whipped cream
1x box of graham cracker crumbs
2x can of pie filling (any flavor)

 For this particular dish, I'll be stepping outside of the ingredients list and adding two cans of whole cranberry sauce to the pie filling in order to get a sweet and tangy flavor.

 Sprinkle your crumbs into the pan. Put enough in there that after some shifting around, the bottom of the pan can no longer be seen. Got it? Good. Moving on.

In one bowl, bring together three blocks of cream cheese and the four tubs of whipped cream. Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature first as it will cause the mixture to clot otherwise.

In a separate bowl, bring your pie filling together along with the cranberries. This is an extra step that is typically not required if you aren't mixing two different flavors. But since this was the ingredients I had on hand, I'll be covering it anyway!

 "Doesn't this look fantabulous?" Laik says as he holds a mixing bowl of combined strawberry and cranberry up to the camera.

What you want to do next is spoon your pie filling (or just dump it from the can) onto your graham cracker crumbs and smooth it out with a spoon or fork until it's reaches the edges.

Now, it's time to bring the show to its finale by uniting the two mixtures together in a delicious collission of sweet, tart and creamy!

And voila! Straw-Cran Yum-Yum! Just pop it into the fridge and let it chill for a bit while you kick back with a cup of coffee or tea. 

 And that does it for me  here on 'Recipes from Mobius'. Again I would like to thank the always wonderful EclairDessert for allowing me to hijack her stream like this and share this (literally) out-of-this-world dessert with everyone!

This is Laik the Wolf, signing out! 

Laik's Top Ten of 2025: Gaming

 It's late November, and so it's once again time to look back on the year and reminiscence about ten or so games I had played that resonated with me for one reason or another. Starting with...

 

Sonic Generations X Shadow Generations

 To say that I refound the love I once had for the Sonic the Hedgehog series again would be a complete understatement. Since my rekindling with the franchise earlier this spring, I had not only gone on to replay nearly every game currently available on modern platforms, but also several fan games and spent an absurd amount of money on merchandise! 

Ignoring the typicaly janky slop that Sonic Team was putting out in this area, what put this game on my list was the Shadow Generations portion of the package. Something that felt like it was developed by a completely different team from the one that duct taped Sonic Generations together. Shadow Generations not only looked great, but felt amazing to play. And while it still focused far too heavily on the boost mechanics, Sonic Team hit a really good medium with the minute to minute gameplay.

Streets of Rage 4 

 I don't know how or when it happened, but beat-em ups became one of my favorite genres this year suddenly, starting with my picking up Streets of Rage 4 on sale one day on the eshop before the Switch 2 launched. Man oh man, if the characters were just a tad bit faster in how they moved, this game would probably have found itself in my top favorite games of all time, period. Not only did it feel and look good, but it sounds incredible as well.

Donkey Kong Bananza

 One of Nintendo's best games period. Wish it had launched with the Switch 2 rather than a month later, but whatcha gonna do? Easily my game of the year for 2025. So much fun. Moving.

Super Mario RPG Remake

A fantastic remake of an already incredible game, with expanded gameplay, in-game content and a more fleshed out soundtrack by the original composer. Definitely my preferred way to play this one now(But only really because it's the only way to play it on my Switch 2 right now...)

Paper Mario

 Two Mario RPGs in one year? Oh yeah. I really wanted to get the original Paper Mario game under my belt before tackling the Thousand Year Door remake at some point, so I fired it up on the N64 Classics app and finished it in about 20 hours. 'twas a fun little time, and it was nice getting to experience a Nintendo 64 game for the first time in modern day, as there isn't many opportunities like that left for me.

Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar 

 I understand why they stuck with the Grand Bazaar title for this. But man, they could have easily given the game a new subtitle as this felt like not just a massively overhauled "remake" of the original DS title, but felt like an insanely fresh and well-developed approach to the series as a whole. I wasn't specificaly fond of the bazaar portion of the gameplay, but the production values kept me stuck in.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

 While I'm not going to say that this is the final game I played on my Steam Deck, it was definitely the last one I played on it this year. A wonderful experience marred by poor performance on the Deck. Cannot wait to replay this next year on the Switch 2.

Freedom Planet 2

 Combining the gameplay and aesthetics of Sonic the Hedgehog (Classic) with elements of Rocket Knight Adventures and the story of a Saturday morning cartoon from the 90s and you get this insanely fun and lengthy 2D sidescrollers with a bunhc of lovely, charming characters and some of the best 2D graphics we've seen in years.

Live A Live

 Another game that had been on my To-Play list that I never got around to buying on Steam, but managed to win a cheap Switch copy in an auction. I don't usually vibe with games like this and the Octopath games due to how segmented progression and story feels, but this does it--at least the remake does--in a way that eventually makes each individual vignette feel worth it in the end. Great battle system, fantastic soundtrack and a really good wrap around story.

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds 

 Of course I wasn't going to let this list wrap up without the blue blur making another appearance, y'know? Had it not been for this game and its crossover approach to the franchise, I doubt I'd have the Crossworlds Traveler series with Laik and his friends to write. On top of that, the fact that this released not only the same year as the first new entry in the Mario Kart series, but was the overall better game, is simply astounding.

Currently Playing: Persona 3 Reload

Approaching the 40 hour mark now. Easily the farthest and most time I have ever put into one to these games. I fully intend on wrapping the story up at this point, even if I'm not totally thrilled by the story or any of the characters outside of Yukari or Koromaru. 

Boss and enemy design are really well done, with some of the full moon bosses putting up some interestingly difficult challenges.

It will be some time before I play another game in this series though, probably the Persona 4 remake, as the structure and gameplay look doesn't instill a sense of adventure in me like most RPGs. 

Mobian Daylife - The Cat and the Rabbit

 ♫ I assumed our time was forever
Naturally, seemed forever
Those happy days we spent together
'Cause you were always beside me ♫ 

Raiza the Cat sang quietly to herself, echoing the lyrics of an otherworldly song. Her little pink nose twitched, her eyes closed as she tilted her head up to the sky, while snowflakes drifted lazily from the heavens above.
She’d fled the scene of the Markhall Store that had grown increasingly uncomfortable the pushier the old mongoose behind the counter had become. He’d been so nice at first, offering her a warm place to hang out for a few minutes and a pretty assortment of Christmas trinkets to look at.
His attempts at keeping her in the store had annoyed it, and he likely knew it as it had surely shown on her face, or ears at the very least. Raiza expressed her feelings, more often than not, through her facial expressions and ears, landing her in more trouble depending on the person.
“Why did you roll your eyes? I’m calling your manager!” Had been the first real trouble it’d gotten her into.
“Flatten your ears all you want, kitty, I know you can still hear me.” Had been another occurrence, this one finally forcing her to leave her then low-paying grocery market job.
Neither of the events that got the young Raiza pulled into the manager’s office had involved her speaking a single word back to the problematic customer. She preferred to save her words for singing.

NINTENGET: Mario Christmas Tree

Got my Christmas tree up. I wanted to get this last year but $40 was a bit too steep, and now having seen how small it actually is, I think I made the right call.