The Food of Potter Palooza

So the food is usually the most stressful and hard part for the party planners, and a lot of times the least appreciated by guests, especially when the party is an afternoon or after dinner thing, since people aren't starving for a real meal, the food is usually just for grazing... Unfortunately, the party host usually doesn't take this into consideration and just makes a ton of food that isn't really necessary (like I did). I will list all the food with instructions/recipes below, but keep in mid if you are doing a party that is not meant to serve a meal, it is fine to scale the food back a bit.

Cauldron Cakes:
Makes 60 Cauldron Cakes (even though they are small, people will usually only eat one or two. Don't overdo it)
You will need:
1 box Devil's Food cake mix
Colored frosting (I found sparkly frosting in a small tube already make perfect at JoAnns. There are different colors, but I liked green for the 'potion'. It will take 2 bottles of those)
Sprinkles for the top (The ones shown here also came from JoAnns. I had never seen anything like that before and was planning to just do the colored sugar sprinkles but then I saw these which are perfect for 'bubbles' in the 'potion')
Mini muffin pan

Just make the cake mix as usual and cook your mini muffins. This can be done 1-3 days in advance of the party as long as you keep them in an airtight tupperware in the meantime. The night before the party you can frost them and they will still be good the next day (not crusty or crunchy I promise, just use the tupperware). To frost, cut the top of the muffin off, a little bit above the ridge when it comes over the pan. This is left to be the brim of the cauldron. You don't want to make a crater, so be careful or you'll have to fill it with frosting and this frosting isn't very tasty so... Then apply the frosting to the cut top (I did it in a swirl pattern) and then sprinkle with the bubbles. I think it would also look good if you let a few drops of frosting run down the side of the cupcake and you stuck bubbles to that (like it was bubbling over) but I didn't have a lot of frosting so get three tubes if you want to try that.

Pumpkin Pasties:
I got this great recipe (and a lot of other ideas) from this website: The Hogwart's Celebration
although I changed a few things with what I found when I tested it out: 
Makes about 3 dozen miniature pasties.

2 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
1 1 lb. can pumpkin
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. cloves
1 2/3 cups evap. milk (1 can)
1/2 tsp. allspice
9 oz pie crust pastry (enough for two single standard pie crusts)
OR try this Pie Crust recipe:
4 c. flour
2 c. shortening
1 c. water
2 T. Sugar
2 t. Salt

Bake the pie filling only (no crust) in a large casserole dish in oven (425 degrees) for 15 minutes. Keep oven door closed and reduce temp to 350 degrees, and continue baking for 35 minutes or until table knife inserted in center of dish comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Make or purchase pie crust pastry. Roll thin and cut into circles approx 4" in diameter. Put a spoonful of the cool pumpkin mixture towards one side of the center of the circle. Fold over the crust into a half-circle and firmly crimp the edges closed. Slice three small slits in the top for venting, place on a greased cookie sheet, and bake only until crust is a light golden-brown. Great served at room-temperature.

A couple of my own  notes here: You can make the pumpkin filling 2 days before if you store in the fridge, which actually makes it easier to get into the pastry. Same thing goes for the crust ( I know because I made everything the day of and killed myself, then two days later I decided to cook up the leftovers and they were just as good).Also, this is a little dry (like pumpkin pie usually is for my taste) so you might want to serve with cool whip.

Licorice Wands:
You can make these the day before, and use your hand dandy tupperware to preserve freshness.
You will need:
Licorice (I am partial the Red Vines and I hate Twizlers. Red Vines also had red, black, purple, and brown licorice available at PartyLand).
Melting Chocolate (One bag will do two boxes of Red Vines)

Melt the chocolate in a saucepan. Then pour it into a tall skinny container of some sort to make dipping and covering easier (I used a champagne glass).  Then just dip the licorice  in the glass, twist a couple times, then set out on some wax paper. You might want to pop them in the fridge for 3-5 minutes to fully harden, and then when you pull them off if there are little pieces sticking out (from being flattened) just hit the chocolate side on the pan and the extra breaks off.









Chocolate Frogs:
You need a frog mold (Amazon for me) and melting chocolate (I used dark and light green pre-colored from a craft store) but you could do brown like in the movies. 
Just melt, pour, refrigerate and pop 'em out. I saw a lot of easy boxes to make but I didn't get around to it. If you wanted to also have each frog in a hexagon box though, that would be cool. 

Acid Pops:
You will need
Sour blow pops
Sour pop rocks
Small bowl of water
Small treat bags
Twist ties

Unwrap the blow pops and dip them in the bowl of water and set down for a minute or so. You can keep dipping more pops in water while you wait and just be on a cycle. After the water has dried a little, sprinkle the pop rocks on the blow pop while twisting it around for full coverage. (We tried dipping them into a bowl but the bowl of pop rocks got wetter every time and was eventually a huge rock hard clump). Then slide them into a treat bag and tie. Done.

Treacle Tart: 
Ok this one was a huge flop. I really wanted to make Treacle Tart since it is Harry's favorite food in the books, but no where in my area sells genuine treacle (which is a British molasses I guess. ) Also, when reading the recipes, it seems pretty gross since it is really just breadcrumbs soaked in treacle or golden syrup with some lemon added and baked in a pie... I had always pictured it like a raspberry type pie or something so that is what I made, but I messed it up some. I found a can of popyseed at the grocery store while getting the Raspberry and thought I could add that as well to make it darker and more textured. The mistake I made was adding the whole can of poppyseed. It was way to saturated with the stuff and didn't taste good at all. I think I was on the right track though, and if you wanted to try something like that  I would do this:
1 can raspberry pie filling or real raspberries turned into pie filling if you're ambitious enough
1 can poppyseed filling (but only use 3 Tablespoons or so)
1 T. Lemon Juice
2 T. Molasses 
Some whole black or raspberries for the top
A quiche or tart pan (I found the most awesome one at JoAnns. The bottom pushed up so after you cooked the crust you could take it out without messing it up. Amazing!).

Make up some pie crust like in the pumpkin pasties recipe. Roll it out about a quarter of an inch thick and get it into the tart pan. Bake that at 350 for 15 minutes or so until the crust looks done (slight browning, hard to touch). Meanwhile you can mix the other ingredients up in a bowl and when the pie crust is done, add that mixture to the inside and bake again only for 10-12 minutes until the middle is firm (when you touch it, it shouldn't stick to your finger. It will look like pudding that has a film on the top when it gets left out too long). When it gets to that point take it out and let it cool. (You can put it in the fridge if you need, but it will be fine sitting on the counter for a few hours.). When you are ready to serve carefully take it out of the pan and put it on your serving dish (this one was $10 from BB&B). 
THIS IS THE HARD PART: use a bread knife to cut the pie into slices. Cut in a sawing motion (back and forth, back and forth) you don't want to force the knife straight down or you will break the crust. Use caution in the corners especially. You also might want to wipe your knife on a paper towel every few cuts into the middle since you will accumulate the filling on the knife which will get into clumps in the cracks if you leave it. Once you have cut your slices, place the berries around the outside edge one on each slice. I put a dollop of cool whip in the middle as well with some more berries mainly just for looks.  


Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans:
There are some places online where you can buy actual Bertie beans which have earwax, vomit, and dirt for flavors. I just went with standard Jelly Belly's to save on shipping and stuff but that was fine. I only needed 1 pound of each to fill these, and I had quite a bit leftover. If you are doing a challenge you'll want to make up some boxes with numbers on them. There are a lot of templates online already, and I just pulled pieces from a few to make this one. 





Pumpkin Juice: 
This will make 20 servings and you can make this up to a week in advance and have it ready to go. This was pretty good and you can drink it anytime. To keep it cold without watering down, I froze a few ice trays with apple cider, and used those instead of water ice cubes when I served it.
You will need:

2 Quarts apple cider, divided
1 piece fresh ginger, sliced into 2'' chunks
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 28 oz. can pumpkin puree
Directions
Pour 3 cups of the apple cider into a saucepan; add the ginger slices, cinnamon stick, and cloves. Bring the mixture to a boil, turn down to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, add the honey and brown sugar, and stir to dissolve. Refrigerate the mixture until well-chilled, or up to a week.

When ready to serve, strain the apple cider mixture into a large pitcher to get out the ginger and everything. Add the remaining apple cider and the pumpkin puree and stir. One 'problem' I saw was the pumpkin kept settling. It didn't taste bad or anything, but you might want to stir it every now and again to keep it looking nice.

Butterbeer:
Ok, this will of course be the shining star of your feast so you gotta get this right. I found 5-6 recipes which met the criteria I was looking for which were: 1) needs to be carbonated 2) needs to be COLD (this is July) 3) needs to have a foamy head on the drink like beer 4) needs to be non-alcoholic (this is a family party)
This is the recipe I came up with which is a combination of several. It is pretty easy, and the mixture can sit out at room temperature and just be added to the soda right before serving. It also makes a foamy head on its own even though it originally called for whip cream to be added on top. This was entirely unnecessary (since what you see here is foam just with the soda and butterscotch mixture) and also because it was already so sweet, that whip cream would have knocked even the Cookie Monster into a sugar coma for three weeks. Here is the recipe that worked best:

Servings: 8

1 cup light or dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons water

6 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon rum extract

¼ t. vanilla extract

Six cans cream soda (6 cans will make about 8 servings because of the added foam and mixture)

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar and water. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring often, and cook for 10 minutes.

Stir in the butter, salt, vinegar and heavy cream. Set aside and let it cool to room temperature.

Once the mixture has cooled, stir in the rum and vanilla extract.

To serve, add about 1/8 cup mixture and 1/4 cup of cream soda to a glass mug (16-20 oz). Stir that up and then fill the glass the rest of the way with cream soda. Presto!


Herbology Food:
I also made a tray of fruits and veggies for the Herbology table along with some pudding dirt cups. Here are those simple recipes:
Fruits:
Pineapple
Kiwi
Melon
Strawberries
Blackberries
I also included a bowl of half cool whip and half vanilla yogurt. All the fruits were laid out on a bed of purple cabbage, and the blackberries were just sprinkled around the top. I wish I had a picture :(
Veggies:
Brocoli
Carrotts
Celery
Mushrooms
I also included some Ranch dressing and Chipolte Ranch and then laid everything out on mustard greens.
 Dirt Cups:
I just layered chocolate marshmallow (rocks), chocolate pudding, oreo cookie crumbs, and a couple gummy worms in a clear cup. Easy and popular.


And that's it for food. Like I said, I think I went overboard with it. There were a ton of leftovers and people just wanted to try like a bite of everything so I didn't need as much as I'd thought. I also should have made almost everything 1-3 days before and just cooked and heated that morning. Oh well, lesson learned but now there are no more movies to throw parties for and apply by wisdom to...