| “Only a few of my friends from the beginning are still around. A lot has changed over time, but there’s always been one constant in my life—you.” ~ Strelitzia (KINGDOM HEARTS Union χ[Cross]) |
With the cancellation of KINGDOM HEARTS Missing-Link this week, it reminds me of when I picked up the mobile game KINGDOM HEARTS Union χ[Cross] and played through the story at a frantic pace to try to experience every bit of this storyline before the services went down – to the point I actually attended the 2018 Dandelion Meeting in Los Angeles.
My favorite character from all of KINGDOM HEARTS is, surprisingly, Strelitzia. When I played through the DLC for KINGDOM HEARTS III, I was incredibly sad to see she was not mentioned and that everyone else got a happy ending while she remained brutally murdered.
The KINGDOM HEARTS IV trailer teased us at the beginning with:
| “The heart resides within the soul, which in turn is guided by fate to its rightful place.” |
And it then shows Sora answering a ringing doorbell…and finding Strelitzia there.
Seeing her, living and breathing and interacting with Sora in KINGDOM HEARTS IV, was a moment that felt like time was just frozen for me. It’s been three years, one month, and five days since that trailer first dropped as part of the KINGDOM HEARTS 20th ANNIVERSARY EVENT and I still go back and watch that video every so often to try to divine just a few more clues about what’s happening next.
With the announcement of KINGDOM HEARTS Missing-Link being cancelled, SQUARE ENIX did drop a bunch of new KINGDOM HEARTS IV images on X. And among them? A new image of Strelitzia.
If the Player is the one constant in Strelitzia’s life, then I hope her soul and heart are being guided by fate to its rightful place with us. And selfishly? I dream that Strelitzia won’t have to die this time. I have a lot of thoughts about Strelitzia beyond this, and at some point, I will definitely write all about them. But until then, I hope you will take the time to read about her, her personality, and why it was so awful that she died in KINGDOM HEARTS Union χ[Cross]. And until then, I will do my best to keep cooking with Love, Eorzean Style.
If you’ve missed an installment of Cooking Eorzea, you can check out all the prior recipes here.
Recipe of the Week
This week’s recipe, the first recipe in the Dessert section of The Official FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook, is for Apple Strudel! This recipe from The Black Shroud has a difficulty rating of ‘Easy’ and it is the 57th recipe I’ve attempted for Cooking Eorzea. It looks fairly easy to make, and I haven’t worked with birch syrup for a very long time. I was also quite surprised at how easy it was to find Honeycrisp apples!
Anyway, here is what Apple Strudel looks like in the hands of an expert:
Featured Ingredient of the Week
This was the first time I’ve actually had a Honeycrisp apple, and I definitely tried some of the peelings when I peeled it during my apple strudel attempt. It is a cultivated variety developed at the University of Minnesota, and it has a real sweet-tart taste to it that just pops with a ton of flavor in your mouth. Honeycrisp apples really had a ton of juiciness to them, and I was impressed with how crisp they are, too. I grew up with pretty much just Granny Smith and Red Delicious apples, so this was a seriously wonderful surprise and a very easy choice for the Featured Ingredient of the Week!
My Cooking Attempt
For the first dessert dish of Cooking Eorzea, let’s take a look at all of the ingredients I used!
I took the two Granny Smith apples, and I cored them. I really had to work on pushing the coring device all the way through to the end.
I then peeled both apples before dicing them up and placing them into a large bowl.
I got out the Honeycrisp apple next, cored it, and then peeled it.
I then diced that apple, too, and put it also into the bowl.
I then pulled out the vanilla seed pod and slit it down its full length. I got out a small measuring spoon and then scraped out all of the caviar from inside of it.
Pure, fresh, vanilla caviar has a very strong smell! I then knocked the vanilla caviar into the bowl on top of the diced apples.
I then added in a tablespoon of lemon juice to the bowl.
Next, I added in two tablespoons of birch syrup. Unlike the late-run birch syrup I used in the very first Cooking Eorzea dish for Almond Cream Croissants, I was able to get my hands on an early-run birch syrup for this recipe since birch syrup season just ended. I ordered it from Road’s End Farm in Maine, and the early-run birch syrup is lighter and sweeter than the late-run birch syrup. This means the birch syrup I got is perfect for desserts like apple strudel!
I next added two tablespoons of granulated sugar to the bowl!
I added in the light brown sugar next. I packed it tightly into the one-fourth measuring cup before tossing it also into the bowl.
I followed up with the cardamon and the cinnamon. I was surprised at how I was only adding in half a teaspoon of cardamom against a single teaspoon of cinnamon!
Finally, I added in the cornstarch.
At this point, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
While the oven was starting to preheat, I mixed the ingredients in the bowl by hand until everything was well-blended together and coated.
Once the diced apples were well-covered, I placed a frying pan on the stove, turned the heat up to medium-high, and I melted unsalted butter in it.
Once the butter was melted, I added all of the apple mixture into the frying pan, spread it out, and I let it cook for 15 minutes or so until the apples had softened and the liquid had thickened up.
I then added the apples to a fine-mesh strainer and let the excess liquid drain out. Once that was done, I added it all to a bowl and I let it cool down completely. I ended up putting it into the refrigerator/freezer in order to cool it down faster.
I then laid unrolled the puff pastry onto a cutting board and placed it until a parchment sheet. I scooped out roughly half of the apple mixture and added it into the middle third of the puff pastry.
I then made two-inch slices along both the top and bottom thirds of the puff pastry before overlapping in alternating layers as I moved down the puff pastry.
I followed up by trimming off the excess puff pastry bits with a pair of kitchen scissors.
I then repeated the process with the other puff pastry before putting them both onto a parchment sheet and onto a baking sheet.
Setting that aside for the moment, I got out a small bowl. I then added a tablespoon of water to it before cracking an egg and adding it in, too.
I then blended them together inside the small bowl.
I got out my pastry brush, and generously applied the blended egg/water mixture to the outside of both puff pastry dishes.
Once that was accomplished, I placed the baking sheet into the oven for a half-hour.
Once the timer went off, I pulled it out of the oven and placed the apple studels onto a wire rack to cool down!
And here is the result for this week’s Cooking Eorzea!
When I tried the apple strudel, I was surprised to find it was a perfect blend of sweet and savory. The cinnamon and the cardamom, despite only being a teaspoon and a half-teaspoon each, really cuts through the apples and the puff pastry. The pastry is perfectly done, and I was surprised at how absolutely tender the apples were. This was, in short, amazing. You can’t really tell from the picture, but each apple strudel is roughly a foot-and-a-half in length!
This was, in other words, an absolutely amazing dessert dish and I think it will be hard to top as I bake my way through the desserts section of The Official FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook.
As a side note – I ended up using the Oathkeeper, Oblivion, and Kingdom Key Conductor Keyblades I got from the KINGDOM HEARTS -World of Tres- concert from 2019 as accoutrements for this week’s dish. With all the news about KINGDOM HEARTS IV, it just seemed completely appropriate.
Afterword
If I was to make this dish again, I would probably use a smaller puff pastry. These were GIGANTIC, and I ended up sharing it with other people since I did not need to have three feet of apple strudel in my home to eat. Other than that, this dish came out perfectly and I definitely didn’t make any mistakes!
As I begin the desserts section, I want to first thank Victoria Rosenthal for writing The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook, and I also want to thank everyone at Insight Editions for giving me permission to use the professional photos to show how these recipes are actually supposed to look. Next, I owe Brandon Rose a special thanks for creating the logo for Cooking Eorzea on short notice. You should check his art out over on X.
Finally, I want to thank Hiromichi Tanaka and Naoki Yoshida for producing FINAL FANTASY XIV Online over the years. Cooking Eorzea wouldn’t exist without them and all their hard work!
Next Week
Next week, assuming I can get all the ingredients and equipment this weekend, will be Cheese Soufflé from the La Noscea region of Eorzea. I’ve never made soufflé before and with a difficulty ranking of ‘hard’, this will be a surefire challenge for me to pull off.
Please return next Friday to see how it turns out!
How much cardamom do you use with dishes? What’s your favorite dessert dish?
Let us know in the comments below!
