Pumpkin Pasties

Last time, I looked at an extract where Harry buys all sorts of treats from the Hogwarts Express trolley. I thought I'd follow it up with the scene where Harry brings back to his seat and starts to eat his hoard.

"Ron stared as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped

it onto an empty seat.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving," said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.

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)."

(Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter Six - The Journey from Platform Nine and Three Quarters)

Harry uses food as way of offering friendship, and sharing his pasty with Ron is a beautiful, heartwarming gesture. I love the innocence of this scene and the way that Rowling makes a subtle nod toward the role of food in social settings.

I made some pasties for me to share with my best friend, my mum, Unfortunately, pumpkin season seems to be over, so I substituted pumpkins with butternut squash. I found a nice simple recipe on the Coop website; I think that simplicity is the key here so that the pleasure is found equally in the food and in the act of sharing.

I prepared all the ingredients for the filling, which constisted of butternut squash, red onion, garlic, vegetable stock and spinach (who knew peeling and dicing butternut squash could be so time consuming?!) and got my  (ready made) shortcrust pastry out of the freezer.

The onion was softened in a pan, to which I added the squash and garlic. After simmering for a while in vegetable stock, I removed the mixture from the heat, added the spinach and left to wilt. I unrolled the pastry, cut out some circles, spooned some mixture into the middle of each and added some cheese. Finally, I folded the pastry to make the classic pastie shape and brushed with egg.

After 15 minutes in the oven, the steaming pasties were ready to devour, perfectly golden and ready to share.

I'm really proud of these Harry Potter inspired savoury snacks, they turned out pretty well. Mum definitely enjoyed them too!

Next Time - Mrs. Weasley's Fudge.

Cauldron Cakes and Liquorice Wands

Harry's first trip on the Hogwarts Express introduces him to his soon to be best friends, Ron and Hermione. He also discovers the Honeydukes Express - a trolley pushed by a squat old witch, filled with scrumptious snacks and sweets...

"He had never had any money for sweets with the Dursleys, and now that he

had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many

Mars Bars as he could carry -- but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What

she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Drooble's Best

Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Liqourice

Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his

life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid

the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts."

(Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter Six - The Journey from Platform Nine and Three Quarters)

I love that Harry, who up until a few days prior to this had been penniless and neglected, now has the chance to splurge his cash on treats. Like any unattended 12 year old with an endless supply of money might do, his eyes outsize his tummy and he gorges on pure pleasure. 

I tried my hand at making a couple of the goodies on offer, plumping for Cauldron Cakes and Liquorice Wands.

First, the Cauldron Cakes. I decided to make some chocolate fairy cakes and then, when it came to turning them into something that resembles cauldrons, improvise. To find a suitable recipe I turned to The Usborne Cookbook for Boys. Although Harry doesn't make the cakes himself, I think this particular book is quite fitting for unsupervised boys with nothing to stop them from eating what they like apart from their own satisfied appetites.

                                               

After combining the ingredients of a standard cake mixture (butter, eggs, self-raising flour, sugar and milk) and then a generous helping of chocolate chunks, I poured the mixture into a fairy cake tin, cooked and left to cool. So far so good.

While the cakes were cooking, I tried to think of a way to make them 'cauldron-like'. A cauldron needs to be able to hold potions and have a handle. First, to make the well in the cakes for the potions to go in. It was simple enough using a knife, as they were easy to handle once cold.

I filled the cauldrons with green icing and sugared balls and then went on to tackle the handles, which proved to be a lot trickier than I had anticipated. My first attempt, which involved pouring melted chocolate in a 'C' shape and pushing the ends into the cakes once set, tasted great but wouldn't stay upright. So I had to resort to plan b - chocolate covered sandwich bag ties. Completely inedible but did the job.

I added a few props just to make sure that they couldn't be mistaken for anything other than cauldrons....

As for the Liquorice Wands, I simply dipped 'strawberry pencils' into icing sugar and then hundreds of thousands. Initially, the iced end was supposed to be the handle, but I quite like the idea that they could be sparks of *MAGIC* spurting from the end. 

I plated them delicately on a bed of Fizzing Whizbees and Every Flavour Beans.

Both creations tasted surprisingly good, but next time there will be less improvisation and more following strict instructions. And maybe I'll make sure that everything is actually edible...

Aunt Petunia's Masterpiece

I'm not ashamed to admit it - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is my favourite book of all time. I love the detective work, I love the mystery, but, most of all, I love Dobby. Dobby the house-elf is the most loyal and selfless creature ever to enter the Pottersphere, always striving to do his best for Harry and the wizarding world.

Unfortunately, Dobby's good intentions are sometimes overlooked due to his clumsy execution, and his first appearance in the series is no exception. For reasons as yet unknown, Dobby is trying to make Harry promise not to return to Hogwarts for his second year, which Harry flatly refuses....

"'Then Harry leaves Dobby no choice,' said the elf sadly.
Before Harry could move, Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open - and sprinted down the stairs.
Mouth dry, stomach lurching, Harry sprang after him, trying not to make a sound. He jumped the last six stairs, landing cat-like on the hall carpet, looking around for Dobby. From the dining room he heard Uncle Vernon saying '...tell Petunia that very funny story about those American plumbers, Mr. Mason, she's been dying to hear...'
Harry ran up the hall into the kitchen and felt his stomach disappear.
Aunt Petunia's masterpiece, the mountain of whipped cream and sugared violets, was floating up near the ceiling. On top of a cupboard in the corner crouched Dobby.
'No,' croaked Harry. 'Please... they'll kill me...'
'Harry Potter must say he's not going back to school -'
'Dobby... please...'
'Say it, Sir...'
'I can't!'
Dobby gave him a tragic look.
'Then Dobby must do it. sir, for Harry Potter's own good.'
The pudding fell to the floor with a a heart-stopping crash. Cream splattered the windows and walls as the dish shattered. With a crack like a whip, Dobby vanished.
There were screams from the dining room and Uncle Vernon burst into the kitchen to find Harry, rigid with shock, covered from head to foot in Aunt Petunia's pudding." 

(Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 2 - Dobby's Warning.)

I thought I'd have a go at making Aunt Petunia's 'masterpiece'. Petunia, a caricature of the superficial suburban housewife eager to impress her husband's business partners with exemplary cookery skills and hospitality, can only have one possible trusted source for her recipes: Delia Smith. Any doubts I had were quashed when I dug out my mother's not-so-well-thumbed copy of Delia's Complete Cookery Course and flicked through the introduction and winced at the particularly twee references to 'the wafer-like frazzle on perfect pork crackling' and 'the consummate crunchiness of a roast potato'. So, I picked a suitable recipe entitled 'All-In-One Sponge', which Delia assures me 'should work even if you've never made a cake before in your life'. Perfect.

All went according to plan as I sifted, stirred and whisked, although the finished sponges left the oven a little flatter than I had hoped.

After leaving to cool I was left with the task of creating something resembling the 'mountain of whipped cream and sugared violets'. I started by whipping as much cream as I could fit into the largest bowl I could find.

After creating the filling for the two sponge sandwiches out of strawberry jam a generous helping of whipped cream, I smothered the cake with as much cream as possible. And then added some more. After adding at least three inches to the sponge in cream, I tackled the sugared violets. As my local Sainsbury's was lacking in the candied flowers department, I had to settle for white chocolate daisies instead.

Not bad for a novice cook, now to find a willing victim to reenact the head-to-toe covering in pudding scene....

Perhaps not.