SC ARPG Fills

Hess’s arms ached from carrying the huge basket of apples from the orchard to Jack’s place. He was more than happy to take them off Dahlia’s hands, but now that he had them there was the matter of what to do with them all. It was more than he could eat on his own, and it seemed like as much as he liked to share things, Dahlia was handing out apples to a lot of other midveilers as well. It would be strange to re-gift them as they were. Hess would have to find a way to make them into something else to get the most out of them—he might even give Dahlia whatever he made as a thank you for her thank you!

A cycle of thank you gifting sounded fun to him.

But first, what to make?

His first thought was pie! As a pop tart strudel himself, the idea of making a nice pastry was appealing to him! But he’d only just started playing around with the cooking bench and he wasn’t wholly confident in his ability to make something that was tasty enough to be worth sharing just yet. His pie crusts so far were made with a lot of love but very little skill, which left them either chewy and thick or too delicate to hold together whatever filling he chose. A pie was a good idea for later—and an apple pie would be great to make for himself for practice, but it probably wouldn’t be worth sharing. At least not as a gift. He might make one later and bring a slice of it around to Dahlia to get her feedback.

What else could he make, then? His skills were limited but he had plenty of product to play around with. What took a lot of apples to make... Applesauce? Applebutter? Those were both promising! He just needed spices and time for those, and he had plenty of both on his hands.

Well, for anything like that he’d need to prep the apples for cooking. Hess set up at the cooking bench and started in on peeling and coring the apples, thinking about what sorts of spices he was going to need to make what he wanted. Cinnamon, of course! Just cinnamon was boring though, wasn’t it? And if he used the same spices for both it would seem like they were the same thing, just one more wetter than the other. If he wanted to make /three/ things—wet, wetter, and wettest—he could also try his hand at making cider. The seasoning was still a consideration, though.

Three recipes, then! The applesauce he would do the least with, just cinnamon, honey, and a little bit of lemon juice. The apple butter could take some more intense seasonings. Cinnamon, sugar—brown sugar if he could get his hands on it—a little bit of cloves, and vanilla... delicious, but that still seemed kind of similar to the other two. Maybe he should try making it spicy as well as spiced. A little bit of black pepper could give it a kick, but would that mess with the clarity? It might work anyway, but if he wanted a little more kick than just steeping the peppercorns would give he could add a few fresh grinds of back or white pepper—or a couple pinches of cayenne! Oh, that was exciting. Spicy, spiced apple butter. The cider would be cinnamon again—whole cinnamon sticks this time, so he could strain it out into something mostly clear—also whole cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and a bit of fresh ginger. Maybe some orange or lemon peel, too, for a hint of citrus. It might need sweetening up, too. Maple syrup? Or honey again, it wasn’t like he had to come up with three completely different sets of ingredients.

Hess reached into the basket and felt around in the bottom. He looked down and found it empty. He’d spent so long daydreaming about apple-based delights and how to make them that he’d peeled the whole basket’s worth. His tendency to space out had once again come to his rescue during a repetitive task. He was a little surprised he’d managed to avoid nicking himself with the knife he was using to prep the apples, but his fingers were all intact. He set the knife and the basket aside and started getting things together to start a fire in the fireplace. He’d picked a trio of time consuming recipes to work with, but the kettle on the cooking bench was especially well suited to long cook times. As long as he was willing to wait—which he was!—he could make something really delicious and worth sharing.