This month will be one devoted to our love of Harry Potter!
We will be featuring everything from book recommendations and gift guides to book reviews and love letters to characters. But what’s more, we will be taking a trip back through the pensieve to rediscover the magic of this boy wizard and the many adventures we had growing up.
Here at YABC, we miss the wizarding world, thrilled that J.K. Rowling has kept the magic alive this year, eager to celebrate Harry Potter’s birthday, and everything else we so admire about this series.
So join us as we travel back through the pensieve this month to have a few more adventures in this wizarding world!
** Contributed by Melissa Robles, Staff Reviewer **
This amazing post was created by Melissa one of YABC’s awesome Staff Reviewers!!
Melissa is sharing some of the coolest Harry Potter recipes ever!
Check out all the recipes below and hope you enjoy!!
Hey YABCers! For Harry Potter Month, I went to my sister (who is a culinary chef) to help me create some Harry Potter recipes! After much pondering and planning, we came up with three fun ideas to make: Sorting Hat Mini Cakes, Butterbeer Cheesecake, and Pumpkin Juice Frappé. Hope you love and have fun making them! Oh, and we would also love to hear your thoughts about these recipes. Enjoy!
SORTING HAT MINI CAKES
Serves about 4
INGREDIENTS:
For cake:
1 box of favorite Cake Mix (we used Chocolate flavor). It can also be made from scratch.
2 cups of Whipping cream/Buttercream (your choice)
For Fondant:
(Note: You can buy your own fondant, but for this recipe, we’ll teach how to make your own marshmallow fondant.)
240 g of Marshmallows
300 g of Confectioner Sugar (also known as Sugar Glass)
Brown and Black Food Coloring
Bronze Pearl Shade (edible dust)
Water
INSTRUCTIONS:
Prepare cake mix following instructions from the box. Once the cake is baked, let it cool until you can cut into 2 1/2 inch square pieces. Stack three pieces together (we recommend to fill with whipping cream between each square) and frost completely with whipping cream. Refrigerate.
If you are making marshmallow fondant, sift all the confectioner sugar and set aside.
Heat marshmallows in a microwave for about 15 seconds with a bit of water (about 1 tablespoon and make sure you toss them around until all marshmallows are wet). Check on marshmallows, stir with a spoon, and heat for another 15 seconds. It takes about 3 or 4 tries for all marshmallows to melt.
Place the melted marshmallows in the sifted sugar and knead until it turns into a sort of dough consistency. Now you have plain white fondant. Fondant is kind of like play-dough, so you have to play with it to form the shapes you have in mind.
Note: Marshmallow fondant tends to dry, so to get it soft and pliable again, you only have to place it in the microwave for a few seconds (no more than 5-10 seconds). It’s also sticky, so you might want to use vegetable shortening to handle it better.
Divide the fondant in half and play with the colors until you get a light brown to cover the cake, and the other one a darker brown for the Sorting Hat.
To decorate the mini cakes (that in our minds are stools), we cut little strips of light brown fondant to resemble wood planks and covered completely each mini cake. The icing of the cake will serve as glue to hold the fondant.
To make the Sorting Hats for each cake, take leftover cake and whipped cream to combine and turn into cone shapes. Cover with dark brown fondant and shape until it resembles the Sorting Hat. Add in details with smaller strips of fondant, food coloring to use as paint for shadows, and the bronze shade for highlights. Remember that the Sorting Hat is an old, battered hat so it doesn’t have to look perfect.
BUTTERBEER CHEESECAKE
Serves 8.
INGREDIENTS:
Crust:
90 g of butter
113 g of Graham Crackers
Fillingg:
2 bars (190 g each) of Cream Cheese
90 g of butter
2 eggs
90 g of brown sugar
1/2 cup of Ginger Ale
1/2 tsp of Pumpkin Spice
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
1 tsp of butter extract
Optional: Whipped Cream, Chocolate, and Butterscotch Syrup for decoration.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F 10 minutes before baking.
For the crust, crush all the graham crackers either in a food processor or with a rolling pin, and knead in the butter (at room temperature) until the mix resembles fine crumbs. Then proceed to press the mixture into an 8 inch baking pan. Store in the freezer until needed.
For the filling, cream the cream cheese and butter in a stand mixer, then add one by one the eggs. Meanwhile in a sauce pan, add the Ginger Ale and the brown sugar, and heat in low temperature for about 5 minutes until it turns into syrup consistence.
When the Ginger Ale syrup is done, add it to the cream cheese and continue mixing along with the rest of the ingredients.
Transfer the cream cheese mix into the pie crust. Place the baking pan in a bigger container (that can stand oven temperature), fill it with water until it covers half the baking pan’s height, cover with foil, and place in the oven for 1-1.5 hours (depends on oven).
When the cheesecake is baked, let it cool, then decorate with whipped cream, chocolate decorations, and butterscotch syrup. Refrigerate at least for an hour or it can also be eaten at room temperature. Baker’s choice.
PUMPKIN JUICE FRAPPÉ
Serves 2
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup of water
2/3 cup of Pumpkin Purée
1/4 cup of Apple Purée
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
1/8 tsp of Pumpkin Spice
1/4 cup of Brown Sugar
14 ice cubes
Optional:
Whipped Cream and Butterscotch Syrup
INSTRUCTIONS:
Place all the ingredients in a blender until ice is well crushed and everything is blended. Decorate as you please.
Note: If you don’t have Pumpkin or Apple Purée at hand, you can make it from scratch! All you need to do is take off the skin of a pumpkin and boil it in water until soft. Then blend the pulp. The same goes for the apple. We don’t add sugar to the purées because it’s easier to use in different recipes.
