Good books allow you to wallow in the created world, lose yourself in the characters and the story. And boy, have I wallowed in The Hunger Games. I’ve watched both films, I’ve finished reading the books and I’ve spent hours online watching the cast of the films being interviewed.

One of the most evocative things about the books were the descriptions of the food and on Saturday, I had a craving for cheese buns, Katniss’ favourite thing that Peeta bakes. I started googling and spent hours down  the rabbit hole of food from The Hunger Games. Three things stood out for me and they were the lamb stew from the Capitol, the bread that Peeta tosses to Katniss and of course, the cheese buns, so that was what I set out to make. I wanted to make fish stew too, but couldn’t find fresh enough fish >.<

One of the best sites I found that recreates food from The Hunger Games is Fictional Food, the lady is committed – she even burnt her nut and fruit loaves so that they resemble the ones mentioned in the book!

Lamb Stew with Dried Plums

This is amazing stew. That is all.

I used lamb shank and I was worried that an hour and a half was not long enough to make the meat soft, but it turned out to be melt in my mouth soft. So good.

Silly me, though, I FORGOT TO ADD THE PLUMS!! After searching high and low for it too.

Peeta’s Burnt Nut and Raisin Bread

Fictional Food had a recipe for the nut and raisin bread, but it required 18 hours of proofing time, so no, was not prepared to spend that much time on a bread this weekend. The alternate recipe I found was relatively easier to make, but I screwed up, I killed the yeast and it never rose, so the texture was more biscuit than bread. But it definitely fit the description of “hearty bread” and was still pretty tasty. One change I made was to replace raisins with dried cranberries.

Peeta’s Cheese Buns

These. These. OMG, these are beautiful. Slightly crisp on the outside from the baked cheese, soft and fluffy bread and gooey cheese on the inside. Hands down, best bread I’ve ever baked. I for sure, am no Peeta Mellark in the baking department.

Only thing I did differently was to let the dough rest for a very long time, an hour instead of 2 and did a second proofing after I’d stuffed the mozzarella.

So beautiful.

That’s it for my Hunger Games adventure and I cannot wait for the 1st part of Mockingjay to come out at the end of the year. Why does it have to take so long?!