More Harry Potter "Stuff"--Preview

I've been busy working on Harry Potter themed food items for a birthday party. Today I made cockroach clusters by dipping dates into chocolate--the texture is pretty authentic (spoken by someone who has never tried to bite into a cockroach!).

I also made "homemade" Bertie Botts jellybeans. I bought regular jellybeans and sorted out half of each colour. Half stayed "normal" and half I flavoured in various ways. I soaked a tissue in salmon oil and put it in a tea ball then put that in a sealed container of jellybeans in the fridge for a couple of days. Another flavour I made was lavender. For this I just crumbled dry lavender into a container of jellybeans and let them sit in a sealed container for several days. I did the same with dill, but the jellybeans didn't pick that one up as well. I also did cayenne pepper, brewer's yeast and onion/garlic (using onion and garlic powder in a sealed container, same as above). You could probably just squeeze out onion and/or garlic juice into a tissue and use the tea ball method for that, but I only have one tea ball.

There is a Bertie Botts bag template available online that I altered and used to put them in. If I do this again, I'd probably just use a small baggie and print off Bertie Botts labels for them instead.

I made acid pops by purchasing extra sour lollipops, freezing them, removing the label and dipping them into citric acid. Freezing them helps the powder stick (condensation). I then re-wrapped them in plain waxed paper.

I am also using fizz candies for fizzing whizzbies, and my own chocolate frogs as on the website already. This year I designed my own frog boxes and cards (and borrowed some ideas from online). I will share the parts I did on the website, and give links for the rest.
Lastly, I've picked up pixie stix to round out the candy. There is so much candy to choose from! I didn't make skiving snackboxes, licorice wands, lemon drops/sherbets, Droobles gum (because all the gum I found has artificial sweeteners and/or BHA or BHT, none of which I would feed even my worst enemy!), ton-tongue toffee, etc.
The whole lot will go into a plain brown paper bag with a Honeydukes log printed on it.

I also found some cool butterbeer labels to print and put those on a couple of old wine bottles. I'm experimenting with a new butterbeer recipe this time around: I've caramelized some condensed milk and will add a couple cans each of Blue Sky rootbeer and Blue Sky cherry vanilla cream soda and a 2 litre bottle of soda water.
I am hoping that by adding the soda water it will be less sickly sweet so that it will be a welcome drink rather than only a novelty. I have a couple of extra cans so I can play with the proportions a bit. I will post the final recipe on the site once I'm satisfied with it. There are other butterbeer recipes there already that we've tried in the past.

We're also having Firewhiskey (gingerbeer "spiked" with a couple of dashes of hot sauce). I was inspired by the butterbeer labels so I made my own firewhiskey label. Unfortunately, I used an image found on the web of uncertain authorship for the purpose, so, not knowing what the copyright deal is, I will not be able to share this on my website later on (unless I find a way to ask for and receive permission to use it). It's a very cool image of a fire-breathing dragon on which I superimposed "Brutus Belcher's World Famous Firewhiskey" and below the image: "90 PROOF Brimstone Aged Since 1768". Since I'd run out of wine bottles, I put it on a 2-litre plastic bottle. If anyone calls me on it, my answer is that wizards have been using plastic since they discovered a fire-breathing dragon on the far side of a tar pond. Lame, I know, but if they're really into the spirit of the thing, maybe they'll just moan and move on.

Last weekend I saw there were white pumpkins at the market. Strange time of year for them, but if they still have some this weekend, we will serve our pumpkin juice in one of those. Again, I'm trying a new recipe. This time I'm mixing canned pumpkin with apple juice and possibly orange juice. Again, any favourable results will be shared on the wizard pages.

I can't find our battery-operated Christmas candles, but if I do, they will be hung with fishing line from the ceiling above the dining room table. I did find soundtracks to play throughout, and Moaning Myrtle will be haunting the party (walkie-talkies hidden in the heating vent).

The cake this year will be a Hogwarts castle cake and I will be taking photos. It will not be nearly as fancy as some on the web, but hopefully it will catch the spirit of the theme, and also be simple enough for most Muggles to conjure up. I'm excited about a stained glass window idea I have: spread marshmallow fluff on the window area, then stick cut-up gummie/jujube shapes on it for the coloured panes. outline it in black shoestring licorice. We'll see if the reality works as well as the theory does in my head!

Here's the cake (take 2--the dog attacked the 1st one). The marshmallow fluff was a bad choice as it ran--better off just using white frosting instead. Seems to me I've reached this conclusion before!