Bingtown Cherry Preserves

It was a simple tray of carved wood, one that Grandfather had brought back from the Spice Isles long ago. On it were six little pots of homemade preserves. Malta knew that the gifts were largely symbolic, gestures of remembered bonds and kinship. Even so, she could remember when the gift had been lengths of rainbow hued silk so heavy that Papa had had to help Grandfather carry them. It did not matter, she told herself stoutly. As if her grandmother [Ronica Vestrit] sensed her uncertainty, she whispered, “The receiver of the gifts tonight is none other than our old friend Caolwn Festrew. She has always loved our sweet cherry preserves. She will know we thought especially of her when we prepared this gift. All will be well.” Malta lifted her eyes to the top of the steps. The smile that dawned on her face was genuine. All would be well.

- Mad Ship by Robin Hobb, Book 2 of the Liveship Trader Trilogy from the Realm of the Elderlings series

I spent most of 2017 either engrossed in Robin Hobb's world or engrossed in my PhD thesis. (The seas were not smooth sailing for myself nor for the Realm of the Elderlings protagonists.) Malta is a particularly memorable character from this series. Hobb did a fantastic job at portraying a highly privileged girl on the brink of womanhood, surrounded by even more privileged people - she is bratty, but in a sometimes embarrassingly relatable way, smart and impulsive. This passage demonstrates the growth Malta has undergone over the last book or two. She doesn't throw a melodramatic fit at the idea of showing up to the Summer Ball with just a few jars of homemade cherry preserves. While her family's recent economic misfortunes mean she is wearing a recycled ballgown rather than the decadent dress of her dreams, she enters the gathering feeling proud and beautiful.

So of course, I had to recreate these Vestrit Family cherry preserves for myself.

As a recipe starting point, I turned to Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. I thought a Victorian-era cookbook might be a good approximation of Bingtown cuisine. Like Ronica Vestrit, Isabella Beeton would have had access to all sorts of foreign goods imported by ship through trading hubs. Beeton was described as "in the climate of her time she was brave, strong-minded and a tireless champion of her sisters everywhere," (G. Nown, 1986) which is also a fitting descriptor of Ronica Vestrit. (Take a moment to read Beeton's Wikipedia page, it's an interesting read.) Finally, I loved her little note that this recipe is "Very delicious." It is rare that she annotates a recipe with that sort of remark, and I quite agree with her assessment.

TO PRESERVE CHERRIES IN SYRUP.

(Very delicious.)

    1529. INGREDIENTS.--4 lbs. of cherries, 3 lbs. of sugar, 1 pint of white-currant juice.

    Mode.--Let the cherries be as clear and as transparent as possible, and perfectly ripe; pick off the stalks, and remove the stones, damaging the fruit as little as you can. Make a syrup with the above proportion of sugar, by recipe No. 1512; mix the cherries with it, and boil them for about 15 minutes, carefully skimming them; turn them gently into a pan, and let them remain till the next day; then drain the cherries on a sieve, and put the syrup and white-currant juice into the preserving-pan again. Boil these together until the syrup is somewhat reduced and rather thick; then put in the cherries, and let them boil for about 5 minutes; take them off the fire, skim the syrup, put the cherries into small pots or wide-mouthed bottles; pour the syrup over, and when quite cold, tie them down carefully, so that the air is quite excluded.

    Time.--15 minutes to boil the cherries in the syrup; 10 minutes to boil the syrup and currant-juice; 6 minutes to boil the cherries the second time.

    Average cost for this quantity, 3s. 6d.

    Seasonable.--Make this in July or August.

- Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton

(1863)

TO MAKE SYRUP FOR COMPOTES, &c.

    1512. INGREDIENTS.--To every lb. of sugar allow 1-1/2 pint of water.
    Mode.--Boil the sugar and water together for 1/4 hour, carefully removing the scum as it rises: the syrup is then ready for the fruit. The articles boiled in this syrup will not keep for any length of time, it being suitable only for dishes intended to be eaten immediately. A larger proportion of sugar must be added for a syrup intended to keep.
    Time.--1/4 hour.

- Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton

(1863)

I wanted to adapt this recipe to something that Ronica Vestrit might be known for. Ronica proudly tends her garden, and on a few occasions incorporates flowers from her garden into food. Of the edible flowers I found readily available, hibiscus and violet seemed the best matches for cherry. While the hibiscus initially added a promising tartness to the preserves, this became a bit redundant once the currant juice was added and the hibiscus flavor itself became a bit too subtle. My first attempt with lavender was a little overpowering, and so I titrated it down a few times before I was happy with the effect. (This is the opposite of my experience with making lavender chocolate truffles - perhaps lavender flavors extract better in water than in cream!) I also wanted to reflect Bingtown in the preserves. As such an important trading port, it has access to spices from all over the place. I tried a few spice combinations, ultimately settling on black pepper and cinnamon. The black pepper adds just the tiniest bit of heat. Together, the three flavorings make the jam taste elegant, and just a little bit exotic. A great match for a Trader family.

Ingredients

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 Lotus Orb Apple Pastries

"The jewel at its center still reflects a pale image of its creator."

- Flavor text from Dota 2 item descriptions

This imagining of an edible lotus orb is actually my second attempt. Last year I made "Lotus Root Orbs," which were little spheres made out of lotus roots. They were finicky, and not particularly tasty, but I thought the name was pretty funny (and I love creating pun-based foods).

For this year's The International, I decided to go with an approach more similar to the Magic Sticks or the Aghanim's Scepters, where the dish in question looks visually like the in-game Dota 2 item. Lotus Orbs appear to be white petals surrounding a shiny pink core. I toyed around with a couple of ways to make edible flower structures - I even considered savory lotus orbs made from onion flowers. I wanted an option that would be relatively easy to serve at a buffet-style snack table over the course of a 3-6 hour Grand Finals series, and that would consistently produce an attractive dish without being too finicky. In the end, this laundry list of criteria turned out to be best served by apple roses.

If you've ever watched a recipe gif, you've probably seen one for apple roses. There's good reason for their popularity - they look impressive, they're easy to make, and they only require a handful of ingredients. To turn these into lotus orbs, I dusted the "petals" with powder sugar to lighten the petals and added maraschino cherries to the center. With the added pop of color, I think the resulting dish actually looks more adorable than your run-of-the-mill apple roses, and is a pretty good match for a Lotus Orb. And is, of course, delicious.

Lotus Orbs may just be a situational item for most heroes, but I think these are core for any Dota 2 menu.

Ingredients

Popcornelius Fudge

"Come now Harry, the Ministry doesn't send people to Azkaban for blowing up their aunts."

- Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This recipe came about as a literal shower thought. There I was, washing my hair like a normal muggle, when the idea of a Harry Potter dessert pun came to mind. Popcornelius Fudge. Does that ever happen to you? A pun so fun you can't not make it?

In developing the recipe, I started with the popcorn. Stale or soggy popcorn is terribly unappealing, so I kept it crisp by coating it in caramel. Building on the "sweet and salty" theme, I thought sea salt and dark chocolate fudge would be the perfect complement for the base. So here it is - a smooth, rich dark chocolate fudge, topped with the salty crunch of caramel popcorn.

Not an experienced candy maker or baker? Not a problem - this 8-ingredient recipe comes together easily and without specialized equipment. Short on time? Want to cut it down to a 4-ingredient dessert? Use store-bought caramel popcorn! Makes for a very fast Harry Potter potluck dish.

Sweet Cakes Soaked With Honey

Catelyn still remembered the innkeep, a fat woman named Masha Heddle who chewed sourleaf night and day and seemed to have an endless supply of smiles and sweet cakes for the children. The sweet cakes had been soaked with honey, rich and heavy on the tongue, but how Catelyn had dreaded those smiles.

- A Game of Thrones, Catelyn V, George R.R. Martin

My re-read of A Game of Thrones last year added many new recipes ideas to my "to-do" list. This one topped the list, because who doesn't love honey? I poked around various medieval recipe sites to see if "sweet cakes" referred to any sort of dish in particular, but this might have been a George R.R. Martin creation. In the end, I selected this recipe from the Receipt Book of Sarah Longe, a beautifully penned cookbook dated to around 1610, because "sugar cakes" seemed to be about as close to "sweet cakes" as I could get.

Teamosas: Mad Hatter Mimosas

'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

'I don't see any wine,' Alice remarked.

'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

'Then it wasn't very civil for you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.
― Alice in Wonderland, Chapter VII, Lewis Carroll

Unlike the tea party Alice stumbled into, my Mad Hatter Tea Party certainly had wine. I was torn between making a tea version of sangria and a tea version of mimosas, so I made both! Because I was looking for a caffeine-free alternative to all the other tea drinks at my tea party, this one is technically a tisane. "Tisane-mosa" just doesn't have the same ring to it as teamosa, so I'll stick with the technically-incorrect name.

DIY Alice in Wonderland Mini-Croquet Game

"The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo... just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it *would* twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she couldn't help bursting out laughing, and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away."

- Alice in Wonderland, Chapter VIII, Lewis Carroll

I was really quite pleased with this inexpensive and easy party entertainment for my Alice in Wonderland Tea Party. The croquet game is one of the most memorable parts of Alice's journey in Wonderland. (Also, one of the most relatable parts of Alice's adventures, in that curious Wonderland way. I know I have certainly struggled with flamingos and hedgehogs of sorts that simply refused to cooperate!) I wanted to incorporate the cricket game somehow into my tea party.

Review: Alice in Matchaland

"But this White Rabbit laid down a blanket, opened a parasol, and PREPARED HIMSELF A BOWL OF TEA."

- Alice in Matchaland

I received a copy of Alice in Matchland  by Mosoko Miyatsuki for free in exchange for an honest review. Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite books, so I was excited to see how the creator wove this story into a cookbook.

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.

‘Unnymoles – a pastry from Redwall Abbey

“Doan’t knoaw wot ee ‘unnymole is? Lukk an’ oi’ll show ee, you’m pay ‘tenshun naow!”

The molebabe rolled out a small patch of pastry, spread it thick with honey and placed on it a strawberry and a raspberry. Wrapping the pastry carefully over the fruit, he coated the lot with a mixture of honey and damson juice. It looked nothing like a honeyed mole, but the molebabes thought it did. Gurrbowl licked his digging claws proudly and added his ‘’unnymole’ to several others on a tray, ready the go into the oven. He wrinkled his nose proudly at skipper.

“Hurr, that’n be ‘ow t’make ‘unnymoles, zurr!”

– Pearls of Lutra, by Brian Jacques

When I was about nine or ten, I raced my way through the Redwall books, devouring each one I could get my paws on. When I didn’t have a new one to read, I re-read my favorite tales of Redwall – perhaps none more than Pearls of Lutra. I loved the riddles and puzzles the abbeyfolk had to solve to save the day – it was a little bit like The Da Vinci Code starring rodents. So, for inspiration for a Redwall August recipe, I went first to Pearls of Lutra.

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.