What I Made Wednesday {A Harry Potter Birthday Party: The Food}

Food is an important thread in our life's tapestry. It says a lot about who we are as a people, a culture, a society. So, when replicating the world of Harry Potter, the food, especially the candy at Honeydukes, helps to embroider the real world of make believe. There are many iconic foods in the Harry Potter Wizarding World and we were able to attach a certain taste, texture, and smell to many conjured foods that were once only words on a page or a prop in a movie. To catch up to this Series you can click on the following links: Invitations, Setting the Scene, Props.

The Drinks
The Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley was a first stop destination, serving Pumpkin Juice (not a favorite of the kids).

Pumpkin Juice
What You'll Need
1 cup Pumpkin Puree
2 cups Apple Juice
1/2 cup Pineapple Juice
1 teaspoon Honey
1 tablespoon Pumpkin Spice or Allspice


What You'll Do
Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Chill until ready to serve.

What You'll Need to Know to Finish
I took an empty glass wine jug, removed the label, and replaced it with the Pumpkin Juice label. Each wizard was able to have a taste but none found it delectable. The Butterbeer, however, was another story!

Hagrid-Approved Butterbeer!

Butterbeer
The party's last stop is a trip to Hogsmeade where the guests partake in a delicious, ever-so-popular drink at The Three Broomsticks: Butterbeer. There are hundreds of recipes on the Internet, some very complicated. We tried our own approach and thought the results were absolutely FANTASTIC (and the kids just couldn't get enough).



What You'll Need

2 liter bottle of Cream Soda
LifeSaver's Butter Rum Hard Candy
Reddi-Wip (do not go generic - we tried a Wal-Mart brand with failing results!)

What You'll Do
Take 10 hard candies, remove them from the wrapper, and break the hard candies in half, enough to fit through the opening of the pop bottle. Put the halved hard candies into the pop bottle and place into the refrigerator. The hard candies will dissolve in a couple of hours. Super Hubby recommends releasing some of the carbonation pressure caused by adding the candy after a half hour.

What You'll Need to Know to Finish
We made Butterbeer growlers for the party and filled them with the cream soda, dissolved with the candies. To serve the Butterbeer, take the Reddi-Wip and squirt just a small amount (like a tablespoon) in the bottom of the glass. This will turn into your "beer foam" once you pour the soda over top the Reddi-Wip. YUM!!!  




The Feast




The Feast in The Great Hall
Pizza and chips was not going to cut it at this birthday party if we wanted to stay true to the legendary Hogwarts' dinner fare. Here's the menu, taken from a page from the Hogwarts textbook we created (see the Props post). We made the Great Hall in our living room and I was fearful about spills so we decided on Invisible Kool-Aide (yes, it does exist) which we called Enchanted GillyWater. It's just like regular Kool-Aide but without the coloring. And, yes, there was a spill - totally MY fault! Sorry, Noah.






The Birthday Cake

Movie Version

Our Version

Imagine my relief when my son requested his birthday cake be exactly like the one from the first Harry Potter movie when Harry receives it from Hagrid. The easiest cake ever! Honestly, the worse I made it look, the better it would be! Hagrid sat on it for goodness sake - awesome! I made the cake out of Funfetti box cake (my son's request) and placed both rounds in the freezer for several hours. Then, I frosted between layers and frosted a thin skin of frosting over the entire cake using whipped strawberry frosting. I placed the cake, now layered with frosting in-between and a thin, smooth covering of frosting all over, back into the freezer for about 20 minutes. I then frosted the entire cake with the regular Creamy Supreme strawberry tub-frosting from Pillsbury. DO NOT use the whipped on the outside of the cake because the pink color is too light. The regular strawberry frosting color is right on the money! Then, I used pre-made Cookie Icing (green icing) from Betty Crocker (equipped with writing frosting tip) to write the words, Hagrid-style! I think our version is spot on! I even placed it in a baker's box tied with purple ribbon, just like in the movie!

All the Marvelous Candy from Honeydukes
This part was probably the most fun we had as a family, coming up with candies from our world to represent the candy names in a wizarding world. We made some of the goodies ourselves, like the Candy Snitches, the Chocolate Frogs, and the Colored Kettle Corn. We visited a local mega-candy store called b.a. Sweetie and found some unique items, as well.

Candy Snitches made by gluing cut-out vellum wings onto Ferrero Rocher.

 The Chocolate Frogs were made from a mold I purchased at a local candy shop. Not shown here, but I added star and moon sprinkles on the bottom of each frog to give it an extra crunch. The boxes turned out amazing! The template can be found here, and the best instructions, if confused, can be found here. Super Hubby even made Collector's Cards for each box!

We also made the Colored Kettle Corn with our Whirley Pop. I'd love to share the recipe with you (it's the best), but not now. Look for it in a future What I Made Wednesday!

Our Interpretation of Candies From The Movie
Exploding BonBons = Warheads
Fizzing Whizbees = Zots
Jelly Slugs = Gummi Worms
Drooble's Best-Blowing Gum = really cool looking gum from bulk bin at candy store
Acid Pops = lollipops in shimmery, glimmering packaging over the pop
Fudge Flies = Sugar Babies
Choco Balls = chocolate-covered cherry cremes
Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans = combo of Jelly Belly jelly beans and package of actual Bertie Bott's Beans or Bean-Boozled (Jelly Belly product)
Licorice Wands = grape-flavored licorice
Sugar Quills = candy Slush Puppy Straws filled with strawberry cream
Chocolate Frogs = homemade
Dumbledore's Favorite Lemon Drops = regular lemon drops from the muggle world
Cauldron Cakes = mini devil's food cake rounds covered in chocolate
Canary Cremes =  cookie we found at the dollar store that had pink marshmallow covered with coconut atop a chocolate wafer

Our Interpretation of Candies Not From the Movie (we just made them up)

Candy Snitches = homemade using Ferrero Rocher
Candy Bats = literally hard candy bats from the bulk bin at the candy store
Snidget Poop - Skittles
Quidditch Poles = braided marshmallow candy
Boiled Dragon Eggs = Easter bubblegum eggs
Petrified Dragon Eggs = Easter Whopper eggs
Werewolf Fangs = Tangerine-flavored candy corn
Unicorn Horns = Twisted lollipop
Coackroach Clusters = foil-covered Easter chocolate eggs
Soul-Staining Gum = Paintz Bubblegum, gum that turns your mouth the color of the gum

All the leftovers...we've been eating candy for weeks!

 Only two more installments of this Harry Potter Party and we'll return to our regularly scheduled What I Made Wednesday programming. See you next week!