Cauldron

The Cauldron is a cooking station that will let you prepare a wide variety of stat-boosting recipes. It can be upgraded to cook better foods and requires a fire to work.

How to Craft

• Crafting a Cauldron requires a Hammer, 10 Tin, and a Forge
• For a Cauldron to work, you’ll need a source of fire under it, like a Campfire or Hearth

The Cauldron will be your main source of food throughout the game, so you’ll want to craft one as soon as possible. You’ll be able to do so after you’ve done some exploring in the Black Forest biome. By that point in the game you should have a Hammer (Wood x3, Stone x2), so the two things you’ll be looking to get out of the Black Forest are Tin and a Forge (Stone x4, Coal x4, Wood x10, Copper x6).

Tin is a basic ore found in the Black Forest. It’s silvery-grey in color and usually found around water. Copper is similar to Tin, but it’s instead found more inland and resembles large green rocks. After you’ve mined some ores, you will need to smelt them into craftable bars. You do that with a Smelter (Stone x20, Surtling Core x5).

Finding Stone and Wood for the Forge shouldn’t be an issue. The main way to get Coal is to use a Charcoal Kiln (Stone x20, Surtling Core x5). Since it can be hard to get enough Surtling Cores early in the game, you can create a Charcoal Kiln to produce a heap of Coal. Then, because disassembling crafting stations returns their full resources, you remove the kiln and use those same resources to create a Smelter to process your ores. And if you’re running low on Coal, you can always overcook meat on a Cooking Station to get some extra Coal.

When you have all the resources and a Forge sitting somewhere near to where you want your Cauldron to go, open your Hammer crafting menu and go to the Crafting tab. Find the Cauldron there and place it. You will then also want to put a fire source under it. You can use a basic Campfire (Stone x5, Wood x2) or a Hearth (Stone x15). You’ll find those in the Misc. tab. Once the Cauldron is placed, you can remove the Forge – you only need it to place the Cauldron, not use it.

How to Use

• Set up a fire source like a Campfire or Hearth under the Cauldron
• Interact with the Cauldron and choose a recipe in the cooking menu that appears
• Hit the big Craft button and wait a second for your meal to prepare

If you want to use a Cauldron, a fire needs to be actually burning under it. So if your fire has gone out, make sure to add some Wood to it before using the Cauldron.

When that’s done, interact with the Cauldron itself. You’ll see a new crafting menu on the right side of your screen. There, you’ll see a list of recipes. They’ll be greyed out if you don’t have the necessary ingredients. If you do have the ingredients, the recipe will be written in white. Choose the recipe, then click the Craft button. It will take a second for your food to prepare. When it’s done, it will go directly to your inventory.

Initially, the list of available recipes will be very limited. As you find new ingredients while exploring the world, new recipes will be unlocked. Some of them will also require a specific number of Cauldron upgrades.

How to Upgrade

• Place your basic Cauldron
• Build one of the Cauldron Improvements and place it close to the Cauldron itself
• If you do it correctly, the number in the star in the top right of the Cauldron cooking menu will go up

You unlock the Cauldron in the Black Forest, but it remains a relevant cooking station throughout the game. In order to keep it up to date, you will need to build Cauldron upgrades as you advance through the biomes. They are as follows:

• Spice Rack (Dandelion x3, Carrot x2, Mushroom x5, Thistle x3, Turnip x3) – Swamp
• Butcher’s Table (Ancient Bark x2, Corewood x4, Finewood x4, Silver x2) – Mountain
• Pots and Pans (Iron x5, Copper x5, Black Metal x5, Finewood x10) – Plains
• Mortar and Pestle (Black Marble x8, Finewood x6, Corewood x4) – Mistlands
• Rolling Pins and Cutting Boards (Ashwood x8, Finewood x6, Flametal x4) – Ashlands

You’ll find these upgrades in the Crafting tab of the Hammer menu, right after the Cauldron. They need to be placed close to the base Cauldron. You can check if you’ve done it right by opening the Cauldron cooking menu. In the top right part of it there will be a star with a number in it. The initial Cauldron level is 1, and with all the improvements through the Ashlands biome it should say 6.

Helpful Tips

• If you place your Cauldron outside, rain will extinguish the fire under it. But if you place it inside, make sure to create a chimney for the smoke it will produce
• When setting up your Cauldron, plan ahead and leave enough open space for all the future improvements, or you’ll end up with a cramped kitchen
• You’ll need a Forge to place a Cauldron and a Workbench for the improvements, but after they’re placed, you don’t need to keep a Forge or a Workbench nearby