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

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!)

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!)

Dota 2 Monkey King Mischief Cupcakes

"But the Monkey King was born for mischief...and offending the gods never gets old."

- Monkey King hero bio, Dota 2

"Does that clarity look suspicious to you?"

Don't you hate those games where you're chasing down the enemy Monkey King who is at 100 HP, you turn the corner, and then he's gone? Is he on top of that tree? Is he the tree?

For the Dota 2 players who have spent far too long trying to get flying vision of Monkey King, and for the Monkey King spammers who love chilling out in iron branch form for the fun of it, these cupcakes are for you.



Each of these cupcakes is topped with an edible version of some sort of Monkey King mischief disguise: a hard candy clarity, a chocolate and pretzel tree, or fondant couriers and iron branches. But how do you know which of these are just innocent iron branches abandoned on the ground, and which are actually Monkey King in sneaky disguise?

Half the cupcakes are secretly stuffed with banana ganache.

Which was delicious. I was unlucky enough that neither of the two cupcakes I ate during my TI7 Grand Finals viewing party contained a Monkey King filling, but as the chef I got to lick the bowl after stuffing the cupcakes, at least. I suppose I could have stuffed all the cupcakes, but I think that would have defeated the purpose of the cupcake.

We arranged the cupcakes in the shape of the Dota 2 map. Half the cupcakes are vanilla topped with green buttercream frosting. The other half are chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Assembling the Cupcakes

Dota 2 Chocolate Pretzel Wards

"A form of half-sentient plant, often cultivated by apprentice wizards."
- Dota 2 flavor text

Full disclosure, this is my third attempt at making something that looks like observers and sentries. For the fifth Dota 2 The International (TI5) tournament, I made yellow and blue cake pops, with little eye balls. They were pretty cute, but - confession - I discovered I don't actually like cake pops. I found them a little too sweet, especially since my Dota 2 spread already included a bunch of sweets that I thought tasted better and more closely resembled the in-game item, like the lotus orb apple pastries and the aghanim's scepter madeleines. 

For the sixth The International (TI6) I tried to go healthier. I candy-coated apples in yellow and blue. Again, the aesthetic was sort of eyeball-on-a-stick, which isn't all that accurate for most ward cosmetics. The apples probably had better nutritional content, but I found it difficult to get a sufficiently bright candy coating, so I think they looked more like eyeballs-on-an-apple than proper wards. 

This year, I decided to throw out the USDA's nutrition guidelines. I wanted to mimic the default ward cosmetics with multiple little yellow or blue eyeballs on a single twisty sort of branch. I didn't want them to be too finicky since I had a few other time-consuming Dota 2 food projects to work on, so I came up with these chocolate and pretzel wards. M&Ms are about the right size and color, taking out a lot of the work from my previous attempts. Also, as far as I can tell from streaming Sumail and Arteezy, Eminems are very appropriate for Dota 2. 

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. They are super quick to put together and look quite recognizable! To really get the wizened wood effect, I probably should have used milk chocolate instead, but I think dark chocolate is so much tastier! 

Ingredients

Colonel Mustard's Charcuterie & Mostarda

I threw a Clue-themed cocktail party, with one food item and one drink themed around each of the six murder suspects from the boardgame. Colonel Mustard lends himself exceptionally well to food items (although was a rather more unusual muse for cocktails). I went with a selection of mustards, mostarda (an Italian fruit and mustard condiment), and a variety of charcuterie.

Mr Green's Basil Zucchini Spirals

For my Clue-themed cocktail party, I based one appetizer or dessert and one cocktail around each of the six murder suspects in the board game. Mr Green's appetizer was an easy choice - I needed something vegetable-based to complement the other heavier dishes like Mrs Peacock's Party Fowl Crostinis, and I love the flavor combination of basil and zucchini!

Dota 2 The International 6 Viewing Party

I had so much fun making Dota 2 snacks for The International 5 last year, so I had many months of anticipation building up for the TI6 finals (not least because of the amazing games in the preceding two weeks!).See what we came up with below!

Dota 2 The International 5 Viewing Party

They're all together. PPD - here comes the ice blast, ready for the dunk in from Universe, it's a disastah! CDEC, they're going to get wiped from the face of the earth -except for Aggresif, he'll jump out. But the wombo combo perfectly hits from Evil Geniuses and they will take Roshan.

- Six million dollar Echo Slam & Ice Blast, EG vs CDEC, TI5 Game Finals game 4

What's a Dota viewing party without Dota consumables? On the menu, we had all your basic starting items: wards, clarities, salves, tangoes and magic sticks. For those brave enough to conquer Roshan, there was of course cheese!

Dota 2 Chocolate-Coated Pretzel Magic Sticks

A simple wand used to channel magic energies, it is favored by apprentice wizards and great warlocks alike.

- DotA 2 flavor text

Like the tango fruit salad, this dish looks surprisingly good for how easy it is to throw together. The one trick is to not use water-based food dyes (I completely failed at this my first attempt), which causes the chocolate melt to form a weird goop.

Dota 2 Aghanim's Scepter Madeleines

The scepter of a wizard with demigod-like powers [and a delightful lemon-y flavor].

- (Modified) flavor text from Dota 2 item descriptions

Madeleines are a sort of french sponge cake with a characteristic shell shape. This shape looks conveniently like the jeweled part of an Aghanim's Scepter, the spell upgrading item from Dota 2. With a few crafty additions, they make adorable little Aghanim's Scepters for a Dota 2 eSports Viewing Party. I tried to dub them "Aghaleines" but the name didn't catch on.

Mrs Peacock's Party Fowl Crostinis

Mrs. Peacock: This is one of my favorite recipes. 

Wadsworth: I know, Madam.

- Clue (1985 film)

It was Mrs Peacock, in the Kitchen, with a delicious appetizer.

For my Clue-themed cocktail party, I served one hors d'oeuvre or dessert and one cocktail themed around each of the six characters in the board game. Mrs Peacock's dish posed a bit of a challenge to devise, but I'm very pleased with the end result.

Sansa's Favorite Lemon Cakes

Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant with cinnamon and lemon cakes frosted in sugar, but by then Sansa was so stuffed that she could not manage more than two little lemon cakes, as much as she loved them. She was wondering whether she might attempt a third when the king began to shout.
- Sansa III, A Game of Thrones

Lemon cakes pop up regularly in A Song of Ice and Fire - particularly in Sansa's chapters! Despite their prevalence, there aren't any precise details about their usual appearance or ingredients.