Saturday, August 26, 2017

Dota 2 The International 7 Viewing Party

"The Echo Slam is there from Gh, the Omnislash - the damage output is too big! With the scythe, Sccc is gone for 2 minutes! The chain frost is bouncing back, Kaka is trying to hide himself but right now it's all Liquid, Liquid, LIQUID! They have taken down four,  you'll get the buyback from the Venomancer. Gh with the force staff - he won't even die for this! Liquid lose nothing but take everything from Newbee!"
- TI7 Grand Finals, Game 3

Dota 2 The International 7 Viewing Party Food

Not going to lie, I'd been looking forward to TI7 pretty much since TI6 ended. Not just for the great games (which were awesome), but because I think making dota 2 themed food is really fun, and it's nice to have friends understand what my weird-looking desserts are supposed to be. (Check out my TI5 and TI6 posts!)

My favorite from this year ended up being the Lotus Orbs, which are little puff pastry rolls with apple and cherry.  (Get the recipe here!)

Dota 2 Lotus Orb Apple Pastries with cherries

The most time consuming dish was definitely the Monkey King Mischief Cupcakes, but I loved how these turned out! I made vanilla cupcakes topped with green vanilla buttercream for the radiant side of the map, and chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream frosting for the dire side of the map. I topped them with little edible Monkey King disguises - clarities, couriers, iron branches and trees. Half of the cupcakes are secretly stuffed with banana ganache - if you eat a banana stuffed cupcake, congratulations, you found Monkey King!! (If you're up for the challenge, I have a somewhat more detailed set of instructions and more photos here!)

Radiant and Dire cupcakes, really cute for a Dota 2 party!

If you've ever spent so much time chasing down a Monkey King that you just want to angrily stuff a Monkey King cupcake in your mouth and eat it all in one bite, this is definitely your snack.

Monkey King can move really quickly when in courier form. This cupcake is, however, quite stationary.

This is my third annual The International Grand Finals Viewing Party, and each year I've tried a different way of making observer wards and sentry wards (vision is important, yo!). This iteration is by far my favorite, and conveniently was also the easiest. Just dip pretzel sticks in chocolate, press in a couple M&Ms, and pipe additional chocolates around the candies to keep them in place. (More detailed recipe here.)

Easy and tasty recipe for Dota 2 Chocolate Observer Wards and Sentries

That is all admittedly a lot of sweet things. On the savory side of things, we also had some Invoker Meteors (yes, those are just meatballs). These meatballs are in a sauce made from sesame seeds and soy sauce instead of the north american classic tomato sauce because China was strong this year at TI and NA was not.

Is a Dota 2 draft complete without Invoker? Is a Dota 2 Party complete without Invoker Meatballs?

Also on the savory side of things, we had cheese and Magical Crackers.

Roshan Cheese and Magical Crackers

Oh no wait, I'm pretty sure those are Just Regular Crackers.

SirActionSlacks and Kaci: "Pretty sure these are just regular crackers."

You're probably looking at all this delicious food and thinking, "wait a minute, there's something missing. None of this really looks like the stuff in my games." And if you're the kind of dota player who gets enraged by the ally Shadow Shaman that hexes a target and then immediately shackles them, we've got you covered! This chicken dish below is called "Noob Shaman Can't Chain Stuns." (Credit to my friend Serami for making this one!) It's a roasted chicken with spun sugar shackles.

Dota 2 hex and shackles: Roasted chicken shackled in spun sugar - for the support that can't figure out how to chain his stuns.

Finally, we had a Dark Rift Dark Chocolate & Matcha Cake. The glaze is called a mirror glaze, and it was my first attempt using this sort of glaze. I think the shiny smoothness matches the Dark Rift effect I was going for, but I didn't realize how difficult it would be to pour the glaze into a spiral shape. However, I do still think it looks pretty neat. The toppers are made from fondant, and I think they look cute, in a goofy sort of way.

Dota 2 Dark Rift mirror glaze chocolate with dark chocolate ganache and matcha green tea cake.

Despite the kinda derpy outside, the interior was delicious. The cake part was adapted from this matcha cake recipe, but with a dark chocolate ganache. The dark chocolate is to go with the "dark  rift" theme, and I wanted a green and brownish cake to better represent Underlord in cake form. All of that was coated with a thin layer of buttery buttercream frosting. 

Dota 2 Dark Rift mirror glaze chocolate with dark chocolate ganache and matcha green tea cake.

Any thoughts on these recipes? Things you'd like to see? Dota 2 food puns you want to see created? Let me know in the comments!

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