Saturday 25 August 2012

Harry Potter night, or, how I am a massive Potterhead.

So about two weeks ago Rich noticed that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - part 2 was coming onto Sky Premiere last night, so, like the HP geeks we are, he set it to record at 4pm and we made plans to watch part 1 and 2 once the boys were in bed. Not too geeky you might say. Except in the two weeks in between, we slowly made plans.

First it was an off-hand remark from Rich that, since there is always a Christmas scene in Harry Potter, I should get some mince pies in (I love them more than is normal). Then I thought I'd make some, because hello, it's August. Then it was what food we'd get in for a treat. Then yesterday morning I thought, stuff it, we're doing Harry Potter night right!
From the top, Butterbeer and Firewhiskey, Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, mince pies, cauldron cakes, and Chocolate Cockroach Cluster.
 Mince pies, made by my own fair hand from this recipe. I added an egg after reading the comments so I could roll it out. It wasn't exactly pretty, but tastes amazing and had I had some icing sugar to sprinkle it would have hidden a multitude of cracks, wrinkles and uneven egg brushing.

 Cauldron Cakes. By this point I was really running out of time, and so again, not the prettiest, but to be honest I was looking at it more as a practise run! I piped melted white chocolate into swirls for the steam, let them harden in the fridge, then poked them into the (delicious, cheap, shop bought -gasp!) mini cupcakes. In transferring the swirls, all of them warped a bit, and several flopped completely. I'd recommend using a high quality white chocolate, or milk or dark, as my cheap white chocolate did not re-harden well at all. If I'd had more time, I'd have removed the cake cases and dipped the entire thing in chocolate - hello sugar rush - to be more cauldron-y (it's a word), but as it was I just piped a rim around the top. The cheap cakes (Sainsburys btw) already had mini sugar stars on which fit the theme.
 Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. Simple this one. I found this image via google, printed it off and cut it out, then stuck it on a sandwich bag full of Jelly Bellys. No risk of earwax flavour, though there is a rank liquorice one. I picked them out.
 Chocolate Cockroach Clusters. AKA Mars bar cakes. These are simple and delicious. 4 mars bars, 4oz butter, 4oz rice crispies. And a whole bunch of chocolate for the tops. Melt the mars bars and butter, and mix in the crispies. Makes 18 cupcakes, chill, top with chocolate. It's actually better done in a tray, but I wanted easy access! These ones look slightly grey from condensation by the way, they aren't gross. I ran out of time (surprise!) again and so put them into the freezer to harden up in time. It was unnecessary, we nearly broke teeth on the chocolate.

 Butterbeer, AKA white grape Shloer. We decided against concocting actual Butterbeer, as every recipe I've ever seen looks like it tastes disgusting. Also the time thing again. And we love Shloer. Bonus - it was on offer. I downloaded (free) the label here.
 Ogden's old Firewhiskey. AKA Rosé Shloer. I found this label on Aviary, at first I was annoyed because it was really too big for the bottle, and I couldn't find a (quick) way to shrink it, but I actually like the way it made the bottle look a different shape. I simply taped the pictures onto the bottles. I do not own these images, obviously.

I had more planned, Fizzing Whizzbee's for one, but I couldn't find the supplies I needed in the short time I had.

So there you have it, quick and fairly easy Potter night. Again, a lot more attention to detail would have been possible if I hadn't decided to go for it with only 5 hours to do it in, while parenting two small boys. But a small bit of geekdom is better than none :)
Neville, for no real reason except it's him :)

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

3 comments:

  1. Oh how you make me smile Cait! And everyone needs a bit of Neville to brighten up their day!xx

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  2. I do love your blogs Cait, you always make me giggle

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