Cauldron Cakes

“Tonight’s the night.  Let’s live it up!  I’ve got my ticket -- let’s all dress up!  Go out and smash it, like Harry Potter.  Jump on your broomstick.  You know you wanna!” 

Not quite as cool as the Black Eyed Peas version, but the point is, the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 movie opens tonight at midnight!!!  I don’t think reality has quite sunk in for me yet.  I watched DH part 1 last night, though, so I’m getting pumped!  I’ll be munching on my Licorice Wands and sipping Butterbeer while I’m standing in line.  It’s going to be AWESOME!

Today is my last Harry Potter post to this blog.  After this, HP haters can stop rolling their eyes at me, and HP lovers will have to look to other sources for various wizarding world treats.  It’s a little sad, yes, but we have done quite a lot of Harry Potter food on this blog, and Anna still has another post tomorrow.  Enjoy it while it lasts!

My post today is on Cauldron Cakes.  Cauldron Cakes are a staple treat in the Harry Potter world, much like Pumpkin Pasties.  They are another invention of J.K. Rowling’s imagination, so there’s no set recipe.  I love it when that happens!  It’s so fun to make stuff up!

Cauldron Cakes have their fifteen minutes of fame in Goblet of Fire, while the gang is riding the Hogwarts Express.  “The lunch trolley came rattling along the corridor, and Harry bought a large stack of Cauldron Cakes for them to share” (Rowling 167).  Soon after, Malfoy comes in and causes his usual ruckus, insulting Ron’s family and in general picking a fight.  Hermione chided: 

“Don’t let Malfoy get to you, Ron –”

“Him!  Get to me!?  As if!” said Ron, picking up one of the remaining Cauldron Cakes and squashing it to a pulp. (170)

That is the best description Rowling provides for Cauldron Cakes.  From this, we can conclude that they are stackable and squishable.  Oh, and they’re cakes that resemble cauldrons.  Where to go from here?

I don’t live on the east coast anymore, so I haven’t had the chance to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter down in Orlando, Florida.  But as I’ve researched the various foods I’ve been cooking, I’ve seen lots of pictures crop up from that amusement park.  One of those pictures was the lollipop sugar quill that I posted – not exactly as accurate as sugar quills would be in the real Hogsmeade.  And while I’m sure they get some things right, in my opinion, they messed up on Cauldron Cakes, too:

 I have no idea what those white things are.  Is that suppose to be smoke?

While these things look delicious, they don’t look like they are very stackable.  The handle gets in the way, and the frosting on the cake doesn’t look like it would withstand much.  Maybe I’m just a total Harry Potter snob (I can hear you guys snorting: “Maybe, Mary?”), but I wanted my Cauldron Cakes to be as loyal to the books as possible.  And seeing as there’s so little description, it just doesn’t seem that difficult to do.

My inspiration for the Cauldron Cakes came from zebra cakes produced by Little Debbie.

I know, it’s sad to be inspired by Little Debbie, but when I pictured Cauldron Cakes, I pictured something like a zebra cake: soft cake covered in chocolate (or white chocolate in the zebra cake’s case), and filled with sweet cream.   Zebra cakes are definitely both stackable and squishable, so all that’s left is to make them look like cauldrons.  I didn’t do my Cauldron Cakes just like the Little Debbie treat, but I mine did have those characteristics.  Well, they may not be a very balanced stack, but they are stackable.

These cauldron cakes are a fairly big production.  Although it’s all pretty easy, it’s time consuming and takes up a lot of space.  Don’t undertake this project unless you have several hours to work on it!

Cauldron Cakes

Cupcakes:

1 chocolate cake mix

Other ingredients as listed on the box (most likely eggs, water, and butter)

Mix up cake according to package instructions.  Grease cupcake pans thoroughly and pour cake batter into pans.  Bake cupcakes according to package instructions.

By the way, cake is pretty much the only thing I’ll use a mix for.  I love homemade cake, but those butter recipe cake mixes are pretty darn good, and so easy.

When the cupcakes have been removed from the oven and cooled completely, you have two options.  You can make the cakes more rounded, or you can allow them to retain their cupcake shape. 

If you want them to retain their cupcake shape, all you have to do is cut a hole out of each cupcake.  I did so like this:

And then you can cut out more of the cake if you’d like, depending on how much filling you want to be in the cake.  Make sure to keep the tops of your cupcakes with their matching bottom – you will use them later.

If you would like rounded cakes, you have to stack two cupcakes like a sandwich, so that the wider parts are in the middle.  You’ll notice, however, that they don’t really stack very well.  You have to level them.  Taking a serrated knife, gently level the cupcakes by shaving off the rounded tops.  Use the line around the cakes from the rim of the pan as a guide for where to cut.   

Once you have leveled your cupcakes and sandwiched them, you can then take the top halves of each sandwich and cut a hole in the middle, so that it looks something like a doughnut.

Be careful to keep the “doughnut hole” center with the cupcake it was cut out of.  You’re going to use it later.

Next, you need to fill the cupcake with filling.

Filling:

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup shortening

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1 pinch salt

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

A few drops almond extract

Food coloring (optional).

In a large bowl, beat butter and shortening together until smooth. Blend in confectioners' sugar and pinch of salt. Gradually beat in milk, as well as the vanilla and almond extracts.  Add food coloring, if desired (I dyed half of it purple, half yellow).  Beat until light and fluffy.  It will have the consistency (and color, if you didn't dye it) of homemade whipped cream.

Filling before I dyed it

Filling the Cakes:

Using a pastry bag, full the cupcakes until they are about 2/3 of the way from the top of the hole. Be careful not to overflow your cupcake with filling – scoop some out with a spoon if you have to much.  Also, be very gentle when filling your cupcakes, because the cake will tend to crack under the pressure.  If that happens, you can kind of glue it back together using a little more filling.  For the sandwiched cupcakes, you also need to add filling into the middle of the two cupcakes, to glue them together. 

Once you’re done filling the cakes, you can put the tops back on.  You only need the very top of the top, so cut off a thin portion of the tops, and gently push them back into the holes.   They should go down below the outer edge.  Be careful not to push too far and crack the cake wall!  You can snack on the remains of the tops while you do this.  There might even be some leftover filling to dip them in.

Half have the tops squished into them, half do not

Chocolate:

4 of those big Hershey Bars – the biggest ones they sell in a regular grocery store.

1 tbsp shortening

Black food coloring

I used part milk and part special dark chocolate, but you can use whatever % cacao you want.  I broke the bars into pieces and stuck them in a glass bowl on the stove.  While the oven was one for the cupcakes, the chocolate gently melted without risk of burning.  I stirred occasionally.  When it came time to using the chocolate, I heated it up in 10 second intervals and stirred a ton until it was completely melted.  I then mixed in the shortening until melted.  I also dyed my chocolate with a TON of black food coloring.   You don’t have to do that, but I thought that black made the Cauldron Cakes look more cauldron-like.  When the chocolate is complete melted and the desired color, you are ready to coat your Cauldron Cakes.

I bought the Hershey bars because I didn’t want to worry about tempering chocolate.  I found out that if you melt your already tempered chocolate at a low temperature, you don’t have to temper it, and it will harden nicely.  The problem with chocolate chips is they don’t have that nice hard snap when they’re are melted and harden again.  I didn’t want the outer coating of my cauldron cakes to be melty and soft, so I used the Hershey Bars. 

Coating the Cakes in Chocolate:

Cover a cookie sheet with wax paper.  Set a cauldron cake on the corner of a spatula and hold the spatula over your chocolate.  Spoon chocolate over Cauldron Cakes, careful not to fill the hole at the top.  Using a rubber spatula or fork, gently coax chocolate-covered cake off the spatula and onto the wax paper.  Be careful not to let it tip over!  Repeat this until all of your cakes are covered (you may need to reheat the chocolate a little bit if it starts to thicken – only do ten second intervals).   The chocolate may be very thick on some cakes, especially around the bottom. You can run your finger gently around each cauldron cake to wipe off some of the excess chocolate.  Put the chocolate on your finger back into the bowl.  When you are finished, place the cookie sheet full of Cauldron Cakes in the freezer.

Putting Potion in your Cauldrons:

1 square of vanilla almond bark, of equivalent of white chocolate

1 tsp shortening

Food coloring

Heat almond bark according to package instructions.  When it is completely melted, add desired food coloring (I also dyed this purple).  The almond bark won’t like the dye much and will start to seize up and thicken.  Add the shortening and stir until it is integrated and the almond bark smooths out again .  You can heat it another ten seconds and add more shortening if needed.

Take the Cauldron Cakes out of the freezer.  Using a spoon, carefully dollop small amounts of the almond bark into the dips in the cauldrons.  This will make it look like your cauldrons are filled with potion.  Pop back into the freezer for a few minutes to harden.  

Once it’s hardened, you’re done!  Enjoy your Cauldron Cakes.   They’re deliciously chocolaty, and the touch of almond extract in the filling makes them positively divine.  If you dyed your chocolate black, beware!  Your tongue will be black for hours to come.  :)

What they look like on the inside

 I really like the sandwiched cupcakes for their rounded quality, but in hindsight, I wish the opening had been a little bigger.  Next time I will cut off part of the top cupcake, so that the cauldron can have a wider hole.  That was the benefit of the non-sandwiched cupcakes, I suppose.  You can pipe on a rim around the top your cakes with any remaining chocolate, if you’d like.

Rims added

I hope you all enjoy the final installment of the Harry Potter series!  I know I will!

Bangers and Mash

Imagine standing in front of your kitchen stove, prodding some large, rotund sausages in a frying pan.  You are admiring the pleasant sizzling sound and the way your sausages are browning nicely, when BANG!  One of your sausages explodes.

That’s why the British refer to sausages (well, certain kinds of sausages) as “bangers.”  A pretty apt name, if you ask me.  Our typical sausages in the US, unfortunately, don’t bang or explode, because the casing around the meat isn’t sealed – it’s open at the edges.  See?

Takes the fun out of life, doesn’t it?  I suppose it takes a lot of kitchen accidents and lawsuits out of life, too, but who cares about that?

“Bangers and mash” is a common meal in the UK.  It consists of fried sausage (not the breakfast kind -- usually plain pork), mashed potatoes, and a beef-based gravy.  

I have always wanted to try bangers and mash.  First of all, I love mashed potatoes.  They were my favorite food when I was a kid.  (Now my favorite food is Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  I’ve matured a lot, eh?)  And I definitely like sausage.  Combine that with some gravy, and you’ve got a superb meal!  So I was delighted when I realized that bangers and mash is mentioned in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!  Of course, I'm quoting out of the American version, so sadly they changed “bangers” to “sausages,” but it’s the same thing.  After Harry tells Hermione to spread the word that the DA will meet in the Room of Requirement, “Harry [returns] hungrily back to his sausages and mash” (Rowling 388).  I’ll take the excuse to make ‘em!

Bangers and Mash

There are three parts to bangers and mash: sausages, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Let’s start with the sausage.

Sausage

The sausages I used weren't exactly traditional English bangers.  As mentioned before, they weren't sealed at the ends, so they certainly didn’t bang.  But they also were not plain pork sausages.  The best alternative I could find, that wasn’t breakfast sausage, was mild Italian sausage.  It was as close as I could get, and the sausages actually went really well with the rest of the ensemble.

To fry raw pork sausage, you have to be careful to make sure it’s completely cooked.  There’s this nasty disease called trichinosis.  I’ll let you follow that link if you want to know the gory details, but the point is, you don’t want to get it, so you have to make sure your pork products are cooked.  So what you do is put them in a frying pan, and then fill the pan with water until the sausages are about ¾ of the way covered.  Boil them covered for 20 minutes, then you can either uncover them and allow the water to boil off (takes around 15 minutes) or pour off the water and start frying.  The grease released from the sausages will help in frying the meat just enough to brown it.  Cut a sausage in half to make sure it’s no longer pink, and if it’s nice and brown and the fat’s melted, you’re good! 

Mashed Potatoes

Next thing to worry about is the potatoes.  Put a pot half-full of water on the stove and bring it to a boil.  Peel as many potatoes as you want (generally a medium potato per person is my rule), and chop them into thin slices so they will cook quickly.  When the water is boiling, dump the potatoes in, with a little salt, and cook them uncovered.  Check them every few minutes with a fork, to see how soft they are.  When a fork slides through the potatoes with ease, they’re done.  Pour off the water.

Now, I know I previously gave you guys a recipe for delicious mashed potatoes, but those potatoes are really flavorful because they’re meant to be eaten without gravy.  These mashed potatoes have gravy to go with them, so they don’t need quite as much pizzazz.  Here’s what I did:

• 2 large potatoes, boiled
• 4 tablespoons butter
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ cup milk (roughly)
• Dash of garlic powder

I dumped all of this into the pan I'd boiled the potatoes in (the potatoes were already in there), and used a hand mixer to whip them until they were nice and smooth.  Taste, and add more garlic or salt as needed.

Gravy

For the gravy, I followed this recipe from the Food Network's site (I changed it a bit). It makes a delicious, sweet flavored gravy that doesn’t require beef drippings.  I highly recommend it. 

Mushroom and Onion Gravy

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 8 ounces mushrooms, cleaned well and quartered
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar water  (½ tbsp sugar, ½ cup water)
• 1/4 tsp white vinegar
• 2 cups low-sodium beef stock

Melt butter on medium heat. Add the mushrooms, onion, and thyme and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Cook, stirring rarely, until the mushrooms are slightly browned and soft, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle in the flour and mix until fully incorporated. Stir occasionally, until the flour is lightly toasted, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar water and vinegar and stir, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Slowly pour in the stock and stir until smooth. Let the mixture come to a boil and cook until sauce is reduced and thickened, about 8 minutes.

Taste and add salt and freshly ground black pepper, if needed. Lots of pepper is good in this dish!

After adding the flour

Boiling down and thickening.  It's nearly done!

Complete!

And there you have it! Bangers and mash, as close to authentic as I could get without spending a fortune (I’m broke thanks to all these HP recipes – and I’ve been going cheap!).  I highly recommend that you try the gravy, at the very least.  But it’s all delicious and savory.

Butterbeer Reprise

I admit it: I felt a little envious that Julie got to try butterbeer last time and I didn’t.  So I decided to try out her butterbeer #3, which had her recommendation as the most authentic. I made a few adjustments based on her review of it, and my own imagination of what butterbeer ought to taste like (I think Julie and I had pretty much the same idea in our heads).  It took me about ten tries to get it right, and now, I believe, it is the perfect butterbeer recipe.  

How did I judge if it was perfect or not?  Here was my criteria, created after many many reads through the series and a careful study before I started creating my recipe:

• Must taste good warm, enough to warm you up after a cold afternoon in Hogsmeade.  When Harry first tasted butterbeer, he “drank deeply.  It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted and seemed to heat up every bit of him from the inside” (POA 201).
• Must taste good chilled, as butterbeer is most often served in bottles meant to be kept cold, but still retain the warm buttery flavor.
• Must be slightly fizzy.  Not milky, and not super fizzy – just enough carbonation to add the pleasant sensation of a bubbly drink.
• Must have a butterscotch flavor, without being sickeningly sweet.  In an interview with Bon Appetit magazine, J.K. Rowling said “I imagine it to taste a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch” (Harry Potter Lexicon).  It can’t be so sweet that it’s repulsive, but it also can’t be so fizzy that it would be watery warm.
• Must have a subtle flavor incorporated with the butterscotch to compliment it and make it uniquely “butterbeer” and not “butterscotchbeer.”
• Must taste good! 

In the books, butterbeer has a very slight alcohol content – enough to make a little house elf tipsy, or lower inhibitions very slightly.  But “‘it’s not strong, that stuff,’” as Harry pointed out (GOF 536).  Seeing as I don’t drink alcohol, I chose to ignore this bit.  This is family friendly, alcohol-free butterbeer.  Other than the lack of alcohol, this recipe is completely loyal to the books.

I have a slightly different recipe depending on if you intend to drink the butterbeer warm or cold.  This is because carbonation doesn’t really work with warm drinks, and you want it to be a little fizzier cold, so you have to add the club soda after it’s chilled a little (also note that there is a little more club soda in the cold version).  Try it both ways!  It’s super fast to whip up, once you have all the ingredients.

This recipe calls for butterscotch syrup.  Don’t have any, and too cheap to buy some?  Make it homemade!  That’s what I did.  It was super easy.  I just followed the detailed instructions (with pictures!) at SimplyRecipes.com.  <-- That recipe makes the best butterscotch I’ve ever tasted, and I highly recommend using it rather than buying some butterscotch syrup.  If you insist on buying some, though, be sure to add a little vanilla to your butterbeer.  It makes all the difference in the world!

Butterbeer

To serve warm:

2 tbs butterscotch syrup

1 tablespoon butter

½ cup cream soda

1 cup club soda

Pinch nutmeg

Pinch cinnamon

Dash salt

Heat butterscotch, butter, and spices in a saucepan until melted.  Stir in cream and club soda.  Serve immediately. (By serving immediately, you get that nice stack of foam as pictured above)

To serve cold:

2 tbs butterscotch syrup

1 tablespoon butter

½ cup cream soda

1 ¼ cups club soda

Pinch nutmeg

Pinch cinnamon

Smidgen salt

Heat butterscotch, butter, and spices in a saucepan until melted.  Stir in cream soda.  Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.   Carefully add club soda, stirring gently until it is incorporated.  Chill for at least another 5 minutes before serving.

The main ingredients.  The stuff in the measuring cup is my homemade butterscotch

Melting the butter and butterscotch.

After adding the cream soda

Delicious chilled butterbeer

This recipe is perfect for me.  It fulfills all of my requirements.  This butterbeer, served warm, is sweet like butterscotch, but not sickeningly sweet, and has a small hint of nutmeg.  It warms you to the core as it goes down, and leaves your lips a little buttery as you sip.  Great for a stormy day.

And you know what? I like it even better chilled!  The flavors blend together spectacularly!  It is a sweet, but still refreshing drink, that still has the warm buttery flavor that seems to warm you up even without higher temperatures.  It has just the right amount of fizz.  I could definitely see myself nursing a butterbeer that Fred and George had nicked from Hogsmeade after a triumphant Quidditch match.

Just FYI, when you chill the butterbeer, some of the butterscotch tries to harden with some butter, and it rises to the top like thick cream.  When you stir in the club soda, it will all incorporate fine.  Don’t skim it off or anything.  That’s part of the delicious buttery flavor!

The goopy stuff that forms when it chills. Just stir it back in.

I’m glad I finally got to try butterbeer, and this recipe perfectly fulfilled my expectations.  As I endeavor to reread the entire Harry Potter series in the coming week before the show’s opening, I will be able to easily imagine its delicious flavor each time the characters take a sip.  It’s HP fan heaven, if there ever was one.

Special thanks to my madre for taste testing!  She helped me get it just right.

P.S. The winner of the poll was Peppermint Toads!  That falls into Anna's territory.  Keep an eye out for that post next week!

Sugar Quills

Yesterday I underwent the most difficult, risky, and complex cooking experiment I have ever worked on for this blog.  I had actually been looking forward to making this particular Harry Potter food above anything else we have been planning, and while it was a fun project, man was it a challenge!  These troublesome treats are called sugar quills, and attempting to make them is not for the faint of heart.  Proceed with caution.

Sugar quills are described in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as “fragile sugar-spun quills” (Rowling 197), “‘which you can suck in class and just look like you’re thinking about what to write next’” (77).  Hermione seems to have a preference for sugar quills, probably because she's always got a quill in her hand to do her homework.

I was impressed to see that sugar quills are so realistically quill-like that they pass for a real quill in class.  I thought, “What is this ‘spun sugar’ and what makes it pass so well as a feather?”  I immediately looked up “spun sugar,” because I hadn’t the foggiest idea what that meant.  Now I know, and I’m happy to educate you as well.

Spun sugar is caramelized sugar (a sugar solution boiled at a high temperature until it browns) boiled to the “hard crack” stage in candy-making, and that forms long, spindly strings when allowed to drip off the bottom of a fork or whisk.  Chefs often use spun sugar as a decoration to create cages for cakes or ice cream in gourmet restaurants.

In case you’re unfamiliar with candy-making, the first thing you should know is that it is a huge pain to do.  Candy has to be caught at just the right temperature, lest it be too soft or burn.  You need a candy thermometer to do it properly. Candy thermometers look like this:

I knew what a huge endeavor I was taking on when I decided to make sugar quills.  I honestly wasn’t sure I would be able to pull it off.  But every time I looked up “sugar quills” online, I only saw pictures like this:

These molded feathers don’t fit Rowling’s description at all.  They aren’t fragile, and they’re certainly not spun sugar.  I was determined, therefore, to be the first to do sugar quills properly.  Fortunately for me, I succeeded.

These quills have spindly little strings that make up the fine texture of feathers, while still being lovely, caramel-flavored hard candy that dissolves in your mouth as you suck on them.  Plus, they have utility in the classroom -- you can have your candy pen and eat it too!

Without further ado, here’s how I did it:

Sugar Quills

Part 1: The stick molds

Aluminum Foil

Inside tube of several ball-point pens (the ink/writing tip)

Cooking spray

I determined to make sugar quills that could actually be used as writing utensils in class, which is why I use the ball-point pens.  This isn’t perfectly accurate in the Harry Potter universe, since they would dip their quills in inkwells (ball-point pens are 100% Muggle).  But it’s as close as I could get.  The only problem is, the ink tube of the pens weren’t very long – certainly not long enough to write with and support a spun-sugar feather at the same time.  So I had to extend them.

Using small strips of foil, I set the ink stick of a pen into the middle of the foil.  Then I folded it over like a taco and created a crease on both sides of the foil.  

Then I removed the ink tube from the foil and bend back the foil along the creases to open up the hollow area where the ink tube had been.  This created a long, thin mold roughly the size of the ink tube.  

I repeated this step until I had made about 8 molds.  I then laid these molds carefully along a parchment paper-covered cookie sheet and sprayed them with cooking spray.  Then I placed the ends of the ink tubes into the molds (so that they overlapped by about 1 ½ - 2 inches). 

Part 2: Caramelizing Sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup water

Place sugar in the bottom of a small saucepan.  Pour water on top.  Place over high heat and allow to boil.  DO NOT STIR.  Stirring causes the sugar to form crystals, which will completely ruin any spun sugar attempts.  As the sugar solution boils, it will stir itself.

When the mixture has come to a boil, place the candy thermometer in the solution, careful to clip it onto the rim of the pan so that the bottom of the thermometer is in the solution but does not touch the bottom of the pan. 

Allow the solution to boil until it reaches the “Hard Crack” candy stage, which is about 305 degrees Fahrenheit (it will take about 5 minutes).  The solution will have a light caramel color, like this:

I actually broke my candy thermometer at one point (those dang things are highly breakable.  Be kind to your candy thermometer!), so I judged my caramelized sugar based on the color, which worked fine.  The picture above is the perfect color.  Any lighter, and it would be at the “soft crack” stage, and any darker, and it would start to get a slight burnt flavor. 

As soon as the sugar solution reaches the proper temperature/color, remove from heat.  Allow bubbles to settle for 30 seconds to a minute before using. 

Part 3: Pouring the Caramelized sugar into the molds

Using a small gravy ladle, quickly pour the sugar syrup into the candy molds.  Quickly is the key word.  The sugar hardens fast, and you don’t want to risk reheating your syrup and causing it to burn or crystallize, so you have to try to do it all in one go.  Don’t worry if the sugar goops over the edges of the molds – you can break that off later. 

Once you’ve filled all your molds (or hopefully filled them, as long as your sugar didn’t harden or crystallize before you finished), check to make sure that the ink tubes are completely enveloped in sugar – they need to have a strong base.  If you have any remaining workable sugar, pour that over the holes and weak spots in your molds. 

Immediately soak your pot in hot, soapy water.  The hardened sugar in the pot will quickly dissolve and make for easy cleaning.

Once the sugar in the molds is hardened, peel the foil away from the sugar sticks very carefully, so as not to break them.  Make sure that if any bit of foil sticks, you pull it off.  You now have your quill bases. Gently set aside.

Note: A lot of these sticks will probably break.  Make more than your target amount of quills, because about half will undoubtedly be ruined at some point.

My pile of broken quill bases. They make great suckers!

Part 4: Spinning sugar

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

2 forks

Make sure your saucepan is all cleaned out and there is no sugar residue.  Repeat Part 2.  While the sugar is boiling, prop your quill bases up so that the sugary part hangs over open air.  Something like this works:

Propped up by the edge of a cookie sheet, anchored by a roll of aluminum foil

When the sugar is caramelized and removed from heat, take two forks and place them back to back.  Dip the prongs of the forks into the syrup and lift them high.  After the syrup has dripped off the ends a few times, it should form long thin strings, like a spider web.  If it doesn’t quite work, your mixture either didn’t reach the hard crack stage or it needs a couple more seconds to settle.

I used rubber bands to fix my forks so that they were back to back.  That way I didn’t have to worry about them slipping all the time.

Take the sugar over to your suspended quill bases.  Dip the forks into the syrup again, allow to drip for a couple seconds (this keeps from getting too many big globs of sugar all over your quills – some globs are inevitable, but if you let it drip, hold your forks high over your head, and work fast, you prevent the worst of it), then hold the forks high over your quill bases and flick your wrist back and forth as fast as you can.  The syrup dripping from the fork will immediately form near-invisible strings, which will fall over the quill bases. Continue to do this until your sugar hardens (be sure that you still don’t stir it around when you’re doing this – crystallization is a pain!). 

Crystallized sugar

Confused?  Check out this page for detailed instructions on spinning sugar and a video of someone doing it.  You can also look up "spinning sugar" on YouTube.

Note: Be careful not to burn yourself!!  This sugar is 300 degrees F, and it will stick to your skin and keep burning you until you get it off!  If this happens, be sure to immediately run the burnt spot over cold water for a minute or until it stops burning, and remove the sugar.  I actually managed to keep myself burn free through this entire endeavor, surprisingly enough, because I kept my body far away from where I was shaking the sugar.  It can be done!  The only stuff that will burn you is the big drips, not the thin strings.

You should have a large pile of sugar string over your quill bases.  Gently squish it down a little and, using scissors, cut the sugar web in between the middle of each base.  Then one at a time, very gently, wrap the sugar webs around each quill base.  You should get something resembling a thin stick of cotton candy.  Carefully squish the web around the base so that it’s flat.  Then you can shape the edges of the sugar web using your fingers and scissors to make it look like a feather.  Voila!

I hadn't shaped these when I took this pic, so they look more like cotton candy.  You just squish them flat from here and gently pinch/cut the edges to make them more feather-like.

Note: You probably will not be able to shake enough sugar over your quill bases to make them look feathery before your syrup hardens.  Count on doing two or more batches of caramelized sugar for spinning.

How big your feather looks depends on how far apart you set your bases.  The wider apart they are, the bigger the feather.  I found that the ideal width was about 4 inches apart for a practical-looking feather.  I did some much farther apart, and dyed green, and though they looked cool, they had a hard time staying up straight.

Warning: Plan to eat your sugar quills soon after you make them (in the next day or so).  I set mine aside in a sealed plastic bag for several days, and when I checked on them today all the water had evaporated out of the sugar, so each carefully spun quill crumbled to dust.  *sigh*  Lesson learned.

And that, my friends, is spun sugar.  It was a huge pain.  It took hours of caramelizing batch after batch of sugar syrup.  I had to guess and check many times before I finally figured out how to do it, and even then my quills don’t look nearly as cool as a professional cook could do.   I definitely have no inclination to undertake this project again anytime soon.  BUT I am glad I did it.  This way I can tell the world, “This is what sugar quills are supposed to look like.”

Corned Beef Sandwich

Of all the Harry Potter characters, the one I most identify with is Ron.  We both are the sixth kids out of seven in our family (and therefore both got a lot of hand-me-downs), we have a hatred for homework and a passion for procrastination, we occasionally feel dwarfed by our awesome friends, we are very protective of our youngest siblings, we let our tempers get the better of us, we’re very sarcastic...  Basically, we’re the same person, only he’s a fictional red-headed British boy, and I’m a real-life brunette American girl.  Minor details, though, right?

I love the scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone where we are first properly introduced to Ron.  This is on the Hogwarts Express, where he and Harry share the same compartment and become fast friends.  There’s a particular moment that makes me laugh, because it reminds me of similar situations that have happened to me many times.  Harry buys a whole bunch of stuff off the food trolley, while Ron awkwardly mumbles that he brought sandwiches.

Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it.  There were four sandwiches inside.  He pulled one of them apart and said, “She always forgets I don’t like corned beef.”

“Swap you for one of these,” said Harry, holding up a pasty.  “Go on-“

“You don’t want this, it’s all dry,” said Ron.  “She hasn’t got much time,” he added quickly, “you know, with five of us.”

“Go on, have a pasty,” said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with.  It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry’s pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten). (Rowling 101)

In my family, my mom always made sure to pack our lunches before we went anywhere.  We rarely ever bought anything -- it was just too expensive with so many people to feed.  Even when we went to Disneyland, we would eat PB&J that had been squashed in my mom’s purse for hours instead of splurging a little on a corn dog.  Often I didn’t like whatever she packed, because she couldn’t possibly cater to all seven of our tastes.  So I totally relate to the lumpy package of corned beef sandwiches.

In honor of Ron, I decided to make a corned beef sandwich (called “salt beef” in the UK).  Actually, my grandma offered me one while I was visiting her last weekend, and since I knew that it was mentioned in Sorcerer’s Stone and I’d never tried one, I said “Sure!” and made sure to take pictures as I made it.

Corned Beef Sandwich

Two slices bread

Mustard

1 pkg pre-cooked corned beef

Heat your corned beef according to the package’s instructions.  While it’s heating, spread mustard on both pieces of bread.  Once the meat is heated, slice thin slices of it and lay it out evenly on one of the slices of bread.  Place the other slice of bread on top.  Enjoy.

Corned Beef in the package

Corned beef out of the package

Ta-da!

I purposely didn’t put much on my sandwich, because I felt that it would be much more like how it’s mentioned in the book if I kept it simple.  I thought the sandwich was good for the first few bites, but after that it was rather dry (as Ron pointed out).  Corned beef is not my favorite meat, but I don’t mind it, so it wasn’t an unpleasant experience.  I can definitely see how Ron would have preferred the pumpkin pasties, though.

More Harry Potter food coming tomorrow!  Keep an eye out!  Also, one more day on the poll in the left sidebar.  Be sure to vote for the treat you want us to make!

Licorice Wands

10 days until the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 opening!  I’ve got my midnight showing tickets.  Do you?

And this is the moment you've all been waiting for!  Now initiating Harry Potter Food Week 2!!!

We didn’t attempt any Honeydukes candy last November, so Anna and I are going to make up for it this time.  We’ve got plans to make some Harry Potter treats that, as far as our Google searches can determine, have never been done before!  Or at least, they haven’t been done properly, according to the books’ descriptions.  Either way, we’re attempting to be innovators in the Harry Potter food universe.  It’s very exciting business, let me tell you.

First off: licorice wands!

Licorice wands are among the many treats Harry buys off the trolley on his first trip on the Hogwarts Express in The Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone (along with pumpkin pasties).  They also get a bit of the limelight in Half-Blood Prince (Book 6), when Harry is invited to his first Slug Club meeting on the Hogwarts Express.  Professor Horace Slughorn gathers all of his most hopeful pupils and offers them lunch.

“I’ve packed my own lunch; the trolley, as I remember it, is heavy on licorice wands, and a poor old man’s digestive system isn’t quite up to such things....  Pheasant, Belby?” (Rowling, Half-Blood Prince 143-44)

I’ve never tried pheasant, and I must say that my curiosity is piqued toward that particular dish, but I think we’ll just stick with licorice wands today.  Hopefully y'all's digestive systems are more cooperative than Slughorn's.

Licorice wands are never described in any of the books, probably because their title is rather self-explanatory.  They’re licorice sticks that looks like wands, right?  But how do we jazz up a stick of licorice to make it look more like a wand?  This allows for a bit of experimentation on our parts, which is a lot of fun!

If you search for pictures of licorice wands online, you’ll discover that most people take a stick of licorice, dip half of it in some white chocolate, and then dip that same end in nonpareils (aka, those itty bitty spherical sprinkles).  However, I don’t think those look anything like wands.  They remind me more of rock candy than anything else.  From the many pictures I looked at, I developed my own little recipe to make the most wand-like licorice you’ve ever seen.

Licorice Wands

  8 black licorice twists

16 Lifesavers Gummies

2 squares Almond Bark coating, vanilla

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 tsp vegetable shortening

1. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper.  
2. Slide two lifesaver gummies onto each licorice stick, one on the very end, and one about 2 inches above it.  Place on cookie sheet and stick in freezer.
3. Melt almond bark according to package instructions.  Stir in 1 tsp of vegetable shortening until it melts.  You can heat your mixture for another couple of seconds if you have a problem getting the shortening to combine.
4. Remove licorice sticks from freezer.  Take 1 licorice stick, place the lifesaver end of the licorice stick in the melted almond bark and use a spoon to carefully coat the stick between the two lifesaver gummies.  Work from several different angles to be sure you coat underneath the lifesavers.  Place stick carefully onto cookie sheet, making sure it is straight.
5. Repeat this step with 3 more of the licorice sticks. Place the cookie sheet back in the freezer.
6. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, heating at 15 second intervals and stirring well after each heating.  Add the remaining 1 tsp of shortening, and stir until integrated (may heat a second or two more to help melt it).  
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 with the remaining 4 licorice sticks.  Allow the coated licorice to cool for a couple minutes.
8. Remove sticks from freezer.  Using a knife, carefully shave off any coating/chocolate irregularities to make the wand handle smoother.  Don’t handle them for more than a few seconds, though, or your warm hands will melt the coating.
9. If you want a thicker handle, coat the ends a second time.  After you have reached the desired handle thickness, store wands in the freezer.  Before serving, remove from freezer and allow to thaw for a few minutes.

coating licorice with chocolate

Final Product

Here are some tips for this process, because it can get a little tricky.

• Red Vines is the best licorice brand.  Twizzlers black licorice = nasty, and too short and too floppy to use as a wand.  You can use red licorice if you dislike black, it just won’t look as cool.
• When you are dealing with melted chocolate or similar ingredients, be very careful not to burn it!  A little heat and a lot of stirring goes a long way.
• Be sure to keep your kitchen cool.  I tried to work with the chocolate in an 83ºF room, and when it came time to shaving off the irregularities after the first coat, the chocolate melted in my hands almost instantly.  I had to turn the AC on for a while before I could get back to work. 
• You can use white chocolate chips instead of almond bark.  Almond bark is just what I had on hand (It’s also WAY cheaper).
•  In my opinion, the chocolate ones looked cooler than the white almond bark. Maybe I’m just biased toward chocolate.  Maybe it’s just because I don’t like white chocolate or any of its close relatives (like almond bark).  But I thought the chocolate ones looked more wood-like, which fit the whole wand idea better.  Plus, the lifesavers show through the white, so you have to do two coats.  I only did one coat of the chocolate, and I think it turned out great.

Once your wands are made, you’re ready to practice magic!  As Professor Flitwick says, “‘Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick’” (Sorcerer’s Stone 171).  It’ll be more like “swish and lick” for you, though, since these wands will undoubtedly leave chocolate residue on your palms.  But hey, what is more magical than chocolate?

P.S. 2 days left on the poll on the left sidebar!  Be sure to vote!