The Best Pie of the Forgotten Realms
Let me tell you, this is probably the hardest Iāve ever worked to come up with a recipe, and the results areā¦ well, youāll see. Buckle up Wafflefam, itās a long one. I canāt promise you it will be interesting, but I CAN promise you youāll learn a lot about edible lichen.
The journey began with collecting what we canonically know about Jarlaxleās pie: Chris called it a āLuskan fractal helix apple pieā, and its ingredients are common enough that you can find them already in Strixās shop or in a Waterdhavian market, the two exceptions being Kara-Tur pears and a specific type of white, aquatic lichen that acts as a substitute to cinnamon. We also know that before getting the two secret ingredients, Strix was already working on the pie for about an hour or more; she then needed a performance check to successfully assemble it, and the pie baked āthrough the nightā. Oh, and also, the pie is ultimately poisoned. More on that later.
The first thing I did was figuring out a āreal worldā counterpart to the secret ingredients, so that I could design the recipe around them rather than trying to cram them in a traditional apple pie.
The choice was easy for the Kara-Tur pears: Kara-Tur first appeared in the Oriental Adventures book for AD&D in 1985, and it doesnāt seem to have changed much since. As far as I can tell, the only mention of Kara-Tur in 5E is a brief paragraph in the Sword Coast Adventurerās Guide, where it says that āFar to the east [ā¦] lie the empires of Shou Lung, Kozakura, Wa, and the other lands of the vast continent of Kara-Turā. Itās probably a safe bet to assume these are the equivalent of our real-world China, Japan and Korea. So at least thatās easy to search: we need an Asian pear that is not that common in the West. You donāt have to look far to find the ideal candidate, the nashi pear; also called Asian pear, itās grown almost exclusively in Japan, Nepal and China, and nowhere commercially in Europe or the US, which makes it a rather difficult fruit to find in the West. I also discovered when researching it that it was called āapple-pearā in several languages, so if thatās not a sign that it belongs in the best apple pie of the Realms, I donāt know what is. Now actually getting the nashi pears was kind of a pain, and after visiting several markets and shops and finding a big fat nothing, I gave up and ordered some online. Which, as you can imagine, makes it by far the most expensive ingredients that goes into the pie. I think I paid more for two pears than for all the other ingredients combined, but anyway, Iāll just be happy it fits into the theme of the rare and hard-to-get ingredient.
Letās get to the white underwater lichen, shall we? Now THIS was a far more complicated treasure chase. At first I thought I could get away with using some kind of algae or seaweed, since there are so many edible ones, but nooo, thatās not what lichen is, you silly goose: itās an organism made of types of fungi living in symbiosis with bacteria that use photosynthesis (most commonly algae). In other words, lichen is a moss-mushroom. A mossroom. This led me on a many-hours search of what types of lichen were edible, hoping against hope that I could just go and scrap some off of the trees and rocks in the forest nearby (spoiler alert: I couldnāt). I finally settled on three potential candidates for ābest cinnamon substitute in pastryā: Umbilicaria, kalpasi, and Iceland moss.
Umbilicaria (pictured above) is also called ārock tripeā in North America. It was a good candidate because, while not strictly aquatic, it does grow better on seaside cliffs and it is harvested in rainy weather. Its colours vary from black to light gray, so, thatās not white, but grayish could be close enough. I ultimately didnāt go with this one for another reason: itās a delicacy in Japan, where itās called āiwatakeā, and thatās pretty much the only place where I could order some from. And it might seem petty, but I didnāt want the two secret ingredients to come from the same region of the world. Thereās no fun in that.
Kalpasi (above) also seemed like a good choice: itās an Indian spice composed of ground up greyish-brown lichen, used in meat dishes. I liked it because, unlike other types of lichen, this one is supposed to actually taste good, with earthy, almost truffle-like tones. And we all know truffles always make a dish 50% fancier. For those interested, you can sometimes find it in the West in specialized shops, under the names kalpasi or dagad phool.
Coming down to the last one, Iceland moss! Despite its name, it is indeed a lichen and not a moss. I eventually settled on this one, for three reasons:
1)Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Itās not always white, but it can be.
2)Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā It has been used as an unusual ingredient by the inventive chef RenĆ© Redzepi in his two-Michelin-star restaurant Noma, in Copenhagen, considered one of the best restaurants in the world. The meals areā¦ interesting, to say the least. Anyway, if itās good enough to warrant two Michelin stars, we might as well use it.
3)Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā As its name indicates, it grows in Iceland, more specifically on lava slopes. Itās not underwater, but I like the exoticism it brings to the table, in contrast to the other ingredients. Moreover, I donāt know how much of 4E has been retconned over the years, but I like the idea of Jarlaxle stumbling upon a rare type of white lichen on an ancient lava slope in Gauntlgrym just before he accidentally released Maegera (yes, the same one) and caused the eruption that destroyed Neverwinter. It gives a bit of flavor to the lichen, pun intended.
Ā Hereās a picture of the bag I bought. Itās not the whitest, but itāll do.
And there we are, the first step is done, we have our secret ingredients. For the more mundane ones, I went as āhigh-end medieval fantasy cookingā as I could:
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Waterdeep flour is most likely made in a traditional mill, probably water- or donkey-powered, so the flour Iāll be using comes from an abbey where it is made traditionally by monks who only sell it there. Iām not even joking. Itās an hour and a half away from where I live but I always make sure to pick up a few bags when Iām in the vicinity. Itās the finest flour I have ever seen, and Iām not exaggerating when I say it flows like water. The stuff is mesmerizing. Do you think they make flour in the Spires?
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The butter is also locally sourced from a dairy just outside my hometown, itās partly made with the milk of cows I can see from my window. I donāt think the taste is that different from generic/industrial butter, but itās as fresh as I can get, and I think thatās closer to what would be available in Waterdeep.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Nothing much I can do about the powdered sugar, so itās just store-bought. I could not find any mentions of sugar in official D&D sources, so Iām assuming they get the expensive one from Kara-Tur and they make the regular one from sugar beets, or that they use honey as a sweetener. Weāll just assume Strix gets hers from her Hewardās handy spice pouch, because we only need a small quantity of it.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The eggs, on the other hand, come straight up from my grandmaās chickens. There are just 4 of them but their pen is bigger than her house and they eat like kings because the entire extended family feed them all their leftovers. I figure Strix probably raises her chickens the same way, or at least with the same amount of love. Their yolk is a bright yellow that you canāt get from anywhere else, and it makes for a good-looking pastry.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Similarly, the apples come from my grandfatherās apple tree. Itās an exceptional tree that produces so much that 2 other varieties have been grafted on its trunk over the years; it now produces three different kinds of apple. Weāre obviously a few months after the season though, so Iām using apples from Fall 2018 that were in my freezer. Not the freshest of ingredients, especially compared to the rest, but itās the most āorganicā apples I can get. I donāt think Waterdeepās orchards use GMOs.
Ā Now we need to find a way to make all of this into the best apple pie possible. On a sidenote here, I realize Iām not going to come up with the best apple pie ever out of the blue and simply by adding a strange fruit and an even stranger spice. My goal is for the pie to be the best it can be, while making it interesting enough so that a pie critic from the Forgotten Realms would be delighted enough to kiss a trash-tiefling.
First we need to figure out what Strix is doing to get the pie ready while her companions are fighting wererats and fishing treasure chests. I decided to use my tried-and-true crust recipe, which I have already posted here. Itās a bit long to make, as you need to make the dough, let it cool down for at least 30 minutes, and bake it blind for 10 to 15 minutes; that could be what Strix is doing during the hour+ when the others are away. Itās also way more buttery than most pastry recipes, and itās a bit unusual in its use of powdered sugar, which I feel makes it closer to what the gameās recipe could be, because, well, itās non-traditional. Given his choice of ingredients, Jarlaxle is obviously more on the disruptive side of baking.
Next, the filling. In my baking experience, I have found that apple pie is always better when the bottom is lined with applesauce: it keeps the crust from overcooking and keeps the apple slices moist for far longer, allowing you to cook the pie for the few minutes more that will turn crunchy apple bits into soft bites of caramelized goodness. The question now was, do I turn the nashi into purƩe and use that instead of applesauce, or should I use it as a fruit topping like an apple?
At first, I thought my supply of nashi pears would be very limited, so I would have to make them count. But once they showed up at my house, I realized my mistake: one pear weighs 800g (1.76 lb). These are heckinā chonkers. Here they are, surrounding a normal-sized apple that wasnāt asking for any trouble:
Theyāre as big as a grapefruit and four times as heavy. And the taste? Oh sweet Lathander, the taste. This is one of the juiciest fruit Iāve ever eaten. It feels like youāre eating a pear, but it tastes like a very sweet apple, with none of the tartness. Itās like a fruit for kids.
So, given that I had so much more fruit than I expected, I could try some experiments; I turned one half of a nashi into purƩe, and I baked a tray of mini-pies to try a few different combinations of fruit and sauce.
And hereās what I discovered āthe nashi loses its taste when itās cooked. There is absolutely no point in making an apple pie with nashi as a main fruit, because itās like biting into a bland pear, which is a shame, given how delicious it is in its raw form. However, its juiciness makes it a pretty great ingredient for the purĆ©e. As I said, it loses its taste, so it doesnāt overpower the apples, but the texture of the ānashisauceā is everything you want in that kind of pie: itās smooth, itās moist, it ties everything together very well. So, Iāll count that as a win!
Now for the lichen. Chris/Jarlaxle said it was to be used as a substitute to cinnamon, so I had a few options: mix it in with the nashisauce, lightly coat the apple slices in it before assembling the pie, or dust the pie just out of the oven with grated lichen. At that point, youāre probably wondering what Iceland moss tastes like, and so was I. So I ate a bit of it. And regretted it immediately.
It is extremely bitter, and tastes like cheap tea. How do you turn that into an ingredient worthy of the best pie in Waterdeep? The first thing I tried was to let it steep in hot water, as if I was actually making tea. I made two cups: one to use the resulting water as a binding agent for the crust (which would imply reducing the amount of egg yolk, but you never know, it could be for the best), and one to see if I could āwash awayā some of the bitterness off the lichen.
Well, again, no to both of those, it was just too bitter. But I discovered in the process that if you let the lichen steep in hot water long enough, it falls to the bottom of the cup and you can mush it into a kind of lumpy paste. Working from this, and after many tries, I finally came up with what I think is a good solution: I boiled the lichen in a lot of water with a few spoons of honey until it turned into mush, pressed that into a mold, baked it for half an hour, rolled the resulting paste into a ball with powdered sugar to reduce its stickiness, let it air dry overnight and well into the next day (I sped up the process by leaving it on top of my oven, which is often on in our home), and baked it once more at a very low temperature for almost two hours. The result was a very hard ball of cooked-but-unburnt lichen, honey and sugar, which I could grind into a sand-like powder.
Its only use in that state is to be scattered on top of the pie just out of the oven, which melts the sugar and frees the aroma of the lichen. Now hereās where it gets interesting: itās sweet and the bitterness is still there, but itās a good bitterness, like adding dark chocolate to curry or a red wine sauce. Itās not overpowering, it doesnāt overwhelm the apple taste, you donāt get it on every bite so you donāt get bored of it, and overall, it just tastes great. And thatās exactly what we want.
All right, everything seems to be figured out ingredients-wise, time to bake the first test pie! I was wondering what exactly would be the look of a āfractal helix pieā, so I just went with a pie-ception kind of concept and used once again my trusty mini-pie tray to make smaller pies on the main pie.
Also, I used an apple peeler and corer and only cut one side of the resulting product to turn the fruits into apple rings rather than the usual apple slices. I was hoping that itād look more helix-y if I covered the pie in intertwined rings. Pop that in the oven for 50 minutes, and here we go!
So here are the results; itās a good pie, all in all. The nashisauce certainly makes a difference for the best, albeit a small one āif you know itās there, you can barely taste it, but if you donāt know it just feels like āhey, the applesauce did its job remarkably well todayā. The lichen is also a welcomed addition on the bites where it is present, but you have to tell your guests that itās there, otherwise their āOh yeah, thatās pretty good in a dark chocolate-y kind of wayā will turned into a shocked āWhat in the Nine Hells is that black stuff that tastes like a cursed grapefruitā.
Regarding the looks of the pie, it didnāt quite turn out as Iād hoped. Sure, itās different, and the mini-pies-on-a-pie where a hit with the guests, but the apple rings had shrunk and broke off each other in several places, making it just a weirdly laid-out apple pie.
All in all, the first full-scale test was a bit disappointing, but not discouraging āthe basics were there, and it was better than my usual apple pie. It just needed a little something to push it over the edge.
At this point, Iām thinking that the ingredients are pretty much the best we can realistically get, and I canāt imagine any cooking technique within my abilities that would improve the overall taste. So letās add more ingredients and see if it does the trick. What can we add that doesnāt betray the lore of DCA and the setting of the Forgotten Realms?
Letās dive back into the process: Strix has to bake her pies in a traditional bread oven, given that she worked in a bakery when she was a child. Which means her pies cook realistically in less than an hour in a very hot oven that stays around 250Ā°C-275Ā°C (480Ā°F-530Ā°F) all day. Weāve also seen in some episodes that the pies can be made and cooked in 10 minutes to half an hour, so she probably has a bunch of pre-cooked pastry case and keeps her oven above 300Ā°C (570Ā°F) , which is possible although quite insane.
But Chris said that the pie was let to bake overnight. How does that happen? Probably by baking the crust blind in the hot oven, which you typically donāt do for an apple pie, then take it out, let the temperature drop and the fire turn to embers, and finally putting the now assembled pie inside and closing the door so that the fruit slowly cooks and caramelizes. And what happens when you leave something in a semi-closed wood-fired oven for an extended period of time? It gets smoked. Literally. This is something I hadnāt thought of before, but every pastry made by Strix should have a very light woody, smoky aftertaste.
I donāt have access to a traditional bakerās oven (Iāve been planning on building one myself for years but never made the jump because I seriously doubt I could pull it off), but nowadays itās easy to come by something called liquid smoke, which is exactly what it sounds like. So letās get back to the mini-pie tray and bake some with different amount of liquid smoke, mixed into the applesauce or baked into the pastry.
And survey says: ooh boy you really donāt need much. If we extrapolate from the taste of the small pies, only about 5 drops should be added to the applesauce, and nothing to the pastry. It should give the pie that subtle smoky taste that hints toward campfire food. Any more and it tastes like the pie has been baked on an unwashed stove where you previously charred pounds of cheap, expired bacon.
Okay, weāre almost thereā¦ and then, as I was scraping my brain to find a new ingredient that would stay true to the pie, it hit me. It was staring at me right in the face from the very beginning.
Itās a LUSKAN pie. Itās from basically a pirate city! It needs rum to be complete! Again, thereās two way to go about this: either mix a big tablespoon of rum with the nashisauce, or pour it on the pie at the last moment to flambĆ© it. But letās be honest, flambĆ© is just for show, and it will be much more flavorful if it bakes with the pie, so, letās do that.
Also, I went back to Chrisās tweet announcing what the episode would be about, and he used this gif:Ā
Sooooā¦ Yeah, thatās probably why he called it a āfractal helixā pie. I donāt think I can replicate an ever-moving infinite pastry in real life, but I can certainly try.
Okay, letās bake a new pie for real! This should be the one. Iām doing everything in one go, as close to DCA as I can:
1-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Preparing the crust and baking it blind, undercooking it a lot, just enough so that there is no risk of the crust losing its integrity under the humidity of the nashisauce, while the rest of the Coven goes on a hunt for lichen and pears. Total time: 1 hour.
2-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Beginning to cook the nashi into purĆ©e with half a vanilla pod (in a bit of last-minute inspiration) while peeling half of the apples; I am letting those oxidize for a bit, so that Iāll have two different colors of apple to work with. Time: 5min.
3-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Boiling the Iceland moss with honeyed water and pressing the resulting paste into a mold: 15min.
4-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Thoroughly blending the cooked nashi purĆ©e and setting it to cool down on the windowsill while the lichen bakes in the oven: 15 min.
5-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Taking the lichen out of the oven and rolling it into a ball with powdered sugar: 5 min.
6-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Mixing the nashisauce with liquid smoke and rum, peeling the rest of the apples, and finally assembling the pie in a pattern that suggests movement: 45 min. Yeah I went back and forth a lot with the placement and shapes of the apple slices. Iām thinking this is where the performance check comes into action, and I do not have proficiency in that skill.
7-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā And now, it has to cook overnight, while the ball of sweet lichen dries out on top of the oven. So what Iām doing is actually baking it at low temperature (175Ā°C/350Ā°F) for over an hour, and then, without ever opening the oven door to keep as much humidity inside as I can, turning it down to the smallest setting for another hour (that would be 100Ā°C/210Ā°F on my oven). Once this is done, Iām still not opening the oven door, and I turn the oven off, letting it cool down with the pie still inside overnight. Also I started it at 7PM, and now itās a bit before midnight because I took my sweet time, so Iām going to sleep.
The next morning, Iām checking the ball of lichen: itās not as hard as the first time, mostly because I didnāt let it dry long enough, but I should be able to grate enough of its surface to lightly dust it on the pie. Speaking of the pie, Iām finally opening the oven door, andā¦ it looks perfect.
Or at least, it looks how I wanted it to look: the patterns are there, although some slices have shifted a little, and the two colors of apple give it a style that I absolutely love. Iām definitely using this trick from now on for my normal apple pies. And itās still a bit warm. Iām taking the pie out and putting the lichen in on a very low setting to dry it out a bit more.
Four hours later, I am serving the pie; I popped it in the hot oven for a brief moment to slightly warm it up, grated a bit of lichen on top of it, and dug in with everyone.
Is it the perfect pie? Probably not. Is it unusual? I mean, kinda, thereās a lot of subtle flavors in there that you donāt necessarily expect. Is it good? Yes, yes it is. The ingredients blend very well together. But more importantly, DID MY MOTHER SAY SHE LOVED IT AND ASK FOR THE RECIPE? DAMN RIGHT SHE DID. And thatās all I need to call it a success.
So here we are folks, this is the end of our Luskan fractal helix pie journey. I had a lot of fun coming up with that one, and Iām looking forward to the next culinary endeavors of the Chicken Foot Coven.
I guess that, as a conclusion, I need to address the biggest question weāre all asking ourselves: is this pie worth making?
If you just want to eat a good apple pie, no, not really. Just make your favourite apple pie, and maybe take some inspiration from this recipe to spice it up a bit. But if you want to try and bake it in the spirit of āletās make a DCA-inspired pieā, please do. Itās tremendous fun. I loved tracking down and using those exotic ingredients, and the process of turning lichen into sweet sand makes you feel like an alchemist. Plus, itās an easy recipe, thereās not much that can go wrong. Itās still just an apple pie.
All right, thatās it, weāre done. If you read everything, thank you so much for keeping up with my rambling. Donāt hesitate to ask if you have some questions related to all of that. Otherwise, Iāll see you all next time there is something to bake!
PS: āBut what if I want to taste what the critic ACTUALLY ate, poison and all?ā
So I did some research, and it seems that most poisons have a bitter taste, which is already present in our pie thanks to the lichen. So, potentially, the pie wouldnāt taste much different. Iād also wager that the Drow poison is tasteless. However, some āclassicalā poisons are known to have a distinct taste: cyanide supposedly tastes like bitter almonds, and poison hemlock allegedly tastes like mild parsnip. Yes, parsnip, you read that right. I donāt think parsnip will be a good addition to our pieās flavor profile, but Iām positive that almonds will make it even better. If youāre not allergic.
