| Title | : | The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory--More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1440503257 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781440503252 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | First published September 18, 2010 |
A proper cuppa tea and rock cakes in Hagrid's hut.
Cauldron cakes and pumpkin juice on the Hogwarts Express.
With this cookbook, dining a la Hogwarts is as easy as Banoffi Pie! With more than 150 easy-to-make recipes, tips, and techniques, you can indulge in spellbindingly delicious meals drawn straight from the pages of your favorite Potter stories, such as:
Treacle Tart--Harry's favorite dessert, Molly's Meat Pies--Mrs. Weasley's classic dish, Kreacher's French Onion Soup, Pumpkin Pasties--a staple on the Hogwarts Express cart
With a dash of magic and a drop of creativity, you'll conjure up the entries, desserts, snacks, and drinks you need to transform ordinary Muggle meals into magickal culinary masterpieces, sure make even Mrs. Weasley proud!
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory--More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike Reviews
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Honestly, one of my favorite books ever.
Dinah Bucholz, a huge Harry Potter fan and food lover, has always been interested in what the characters are eating.
So much of Hogwarts's magic revolves around food - from the Great Hall tables to home-cooked recipes a la Mrs. Weasley's wandwork.
And yet, where does one go if they want to try Hagrid's rock cakes or Mrs. Weasley's muffins? What the heck is treacle?? The answer has finally come.
Bucholz went through the entire series and found all of the food references by Harry and the gang, then found traditional recipes according to the time era and the country of origin - and packaged it all in this wondrous little book.
Each recipe is accompanied with a little quote, page number and blurb about where the item originated. The recipes are well laid out and easy to follow, with helpful hints for the more difficult ones!
In short - I freaking love it.
Since reading this book, I've kindled a huge passion for cooking and baking. I've found excuses to try recipes out on anyone and everyone I know.
So many recipes within Harry Potter are normal, everyday items in England and, like Bulchoz, always wondered what does the food taste like?
Is spotted dick gross? It's not!
Does Hagrid's Rock Cakes actually contain rocks? They don't!
And what in the world is black pudding? It's better not to know...
I've paged through this book so many times that I've memorized the recipe locations. Here are some easy, personal favorites:
Breakfasts
Hagrid's rock cakes (finally figured out scones. So many toppings and varieties at my fingertips)
Breakfast Before Class: herbed and spiced sausage patties
Treats from the Train's cauldron cakes
Mrs Weasley's oversized blueberry muffins (below)
Meals
Aunt Petunia's pork tenderloin (either the regular or the bourbon glaze)
Molly Weasley's onion meatballs with onion sauce
All of the savory pies (except for the kidney and pork ones, haven't made those yet)
Desserts
Molly Weasley's apple pie (quote from co-worker: "Miranda, you make some bomb-a** pie")
Hagrid's sugar biscuits (great for cut out cookies)
Molly Weasley's Vol-a-vents (huge hit for mother's day breakfast)
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So I saw this
cauldron soup mug and it reminded me that I read this book and never added a review.
There really doesn't seem like anything too fancy here, so people with a Sim cooking skill of 3 bars or less shouldn't feel out of place picking this up.
Happy eating :-)
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Okay, so being one of the few people who actually has cooked out of this recipe book, I wanted to say a few things about it.
Real cooking takes some effort, people. Real cooking isn't about throwing three ingredients into the microwave and hoping it doesn't taste like rubber when it comes out. These recipes are the REAL DEAL. Real cooking, real home cooking. So it will take some effort.
Some of the recipes are great. I totally enjoyed the Yorkshire pudding with our roast (we did pork since I don't eat beef; otherwise the recipe was exactly the same). My husband loved the treacle tart, but it wasn't my thing...but it was a good recipe. I also made the English Strawberry Trifle, which was very complicated but worth every moment of sweating in the kitchen. You can't get that type of food from a box. The Shepherd's Pie was also quite tasty (and relatively simple).
However, some of the recipes leave something to be desired. I agree with other reviewers. Really, a recipe for eggs and bacon? I think most people who are capable of cooking the rest of the recipes in this book know how to cook bacon and eggs. The sugar-mice are just fondant? Who wants to eat just plain-old fondant? Why not add some flavoring (I don't count vanilla extract) and then roll the mice in sugar to make...SUGAR mice?
And then there was the Old-Fashioned Chocolate Buttermilk Sheet Cake Disaster. I was surprised at how liquid-y the batter was, and even more surprised that it only called for a 9x13 pan. Thinking that this cake probably wouldn't rise so much, I went ahead and used all the batter in one pan. Disaster. Complete, utter, total disaster. I followed the recipe to a tee and what happened? The batter bubbled up all over my oven, and continued to bubble and spill everywhere even after I removed it from the oven. All those ingredients, wasted. Smoke everywhere. Did the author even test this recipe? This should have been for two pans, or perhaps four round pans. DO NOT try to bake this in only one 9x13 pan, unless you want to waste the rest of the batter.
Now I'm afraid to try the rest of the recipes, wondering what other disasters await me. -
A belated birthday gift from my beautiful friend
Carrie!
The perfect gift for a chronic bookaholic and foodie. Can't wait to try some of these recipes!
UPDATE 2/8/15
I made my first official Harry Potter recipe this morning. Here is my giant stack of cauldron cakes. Light, fluffy, crepe-like pancakes with a hint of lemon zest. I ate them with lemon curd and aussie-style yogurt. Delish!
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While the blurbs paraphrasing episodes from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series have generally been entertaining enough (although also often much too repetitive in scope and feel, and to such an extent that I actually ended up skimming quite a large chunk of the second part of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook as far too many of the presented examples of Harry and his friends enjoying different types of foods actually just ended up feeling as though one was reading the same types of scenarios over and over again), I cannot really say that I have at ALL appreciated the manner in which author Dinah Bucholz has approached her 150 odd recipes. For since all of the recipes featured in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook are of course and naturally United Kingdom based and that a goodly number of them also do appear as being potentially rather difficult and complicated to make, with intricate instructions as well as sometimes necessitating ingredients with which many American and/or Canadian cooks might be not that familiar, I for one would have assumed that Dinah Bucholz to also the include at least a SOME pictures, some accompanying photos of what the end products would and should look like (and that there are NO accompanying visuals whatsoever featured and presented in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, this really does make me quite massively and personally livid).
And indeed (and even though I do like and very much appreciate that Dinah Bucholz has listed her sources at the back of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook), the complete lack of any and all photographs (or illustrations) is definitely enough this time around for me to only consider but a one star ranking for this here cookbook, mostly because there is no way that I even want to try to make many if not most of the author's featured recipes without a bit of a visual guide, as I am not that great of a cook and absolutely do require pictures of at the very least the finished, the end products, especially with the kind of often quite complicated and difficult to make recipes to be found in the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, and in particular, the different kinds of ice creams, candies and the like in my opinion absolutely do need to be visualised as illustrations or photographs. And I really do have to question why Dinah Bucholz ended up deciding to not present any food based pictures period in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, as even the book cover does not really feature food, but just a cauldron (in which, I guess, food might be cooked, but considering that this is a Harry Potter cookbook, the cauldron probably simply relates back to the fact that Hogwarts is a school of sorcery). -
I thoroughly enjoyed Dinah Bucholtz’s The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory — More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards.
But I was a bit confused as to who the intended audience was. Initially, I thought it was a cookbook aimed at children. The introduction seems to make it seem so, and I thought, what a great idea! Lure boys and girls into the joys of cooking byexploiting— er, capitalizing — on children’s love for the Harry Potter books and movies. Each recipe references a dish or treat mentioned in one of the seven Harry Potter novels, complete with quotation and citation.
But then I began going through the cookbook, and I would definitely hesitate before giving it to anyone younger than 13 or 14. Frying, hot ovens, lots of dicing — none of these are activities I would allow a preteen to even think about doing! My daughter ended up in the Emergency Room one night from a knife cut on her palm — and she was 14! I don’t know who was sobbing more: her or me.
So, while The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory — More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards might be a good present for a mom or dad who wants to cook alongside a child, it’s no substitute for
The Mom 100 Cookbook: 100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket for a parent who wants to teach a child to cook. That said, there are plenty of grown-up Potter Heads who would love this book. And it’s serviceable as a general introduction to British cookery (Chiddingly Hotpot, Toad in the Hole, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, steak and potato pie, Scotch Collops, bangers and mash, a traditional fry-up including fried tomatoes, English strawberry trifle, Victoria sponge, or Spotted Dick anyone?) or for anyone wishing to learn more about the history of traditional English dishes, as Bucholz includes histories for nearly every single recipe.
But, as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so is the proof of a cookbook in how many recipes the reader can use. I copied down more than 40 recipes — which is great as far as I’m concerned.
And, for those with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, it’s free! You can’t beat that! -
OK, so I haven't yet tried out any of the recipes, so I won't rate it yet, but just from reading it there are some things I noticed:
A recipe for Bacon and Eggs? Really? Actually it's two recepies for Bacon and Eggs and then another for bacon. Has anybody ever needed instructions on how to make bacon?
The way the recepies are sorted is less-than-ideal. There's a chapter for the food Harry had with the Dursley's, another for the Weasley's, the Hogwarts. So for every chapter you get proper dinner, cakes, sweets, desserts etc. Now if they would at least fit together, so that all the dinners mentioned in the Weasley-chapters would go particularily well with the desserts but you can just about combine everything with everything else. Sorting them differently would have made more sense.
A LOT of space is used for the quotes mentioning the food and then telling more about that scene in great detail. You know, I've read the Harry Potter books. More than once. I've watched the movies. I'm quite familiar with the stories...as I assume are most people reading this book. We don't need to be told that Harry is best friends with Ron. These parts could have been shorter.
This book seems to be targeted at children (there are several references to 'your friends' and 'your parents') but apart from the Bacon and Eggs most recepies look bloody complicated. There are a lot of pasties (I have made pasties several times and still don't get the dough right...) and instructions like 'Let cook for and hour but be careful, don't let it get to hot as it might explode'. Probably not the ideal choice for 13 year old HP-fans. Now I'm not saying it shouldn't have these recipes but some kind of rating system from 'Children can make this on their own with some supervision from adults' to 'children can watch adults from a safe distance while they try not to blow the kitchen up while cooking' would have been a good idea.
Two recipes are actually marked as 'not tested, try at your own risk'. Now I don't think I need to say anything except WTF? -
I don't even know where to begin with this book! It is amazing. You think you're just getting another book with recipes, but no, it is so much more than that. Even the paper it is printed on is amazing.
I received this book as a gift from my son, who knows how much of a Potterhead I am. For that alone I would treasure it, but it goes beyond that. It is, essentially, a work of art in and of itself.
The recipes, some of which are old English traditions, are also tied in with the Potter series. The book includes where the students or other characters enjoyed the particular dish.
Not all of the foods are necessarily enjoyed at the great feasts at Hogwarts; some are just mentioned in passing. For example the recipe for Lemon Drops refers back to a conversation Harry had with Professor McGonagall, and "lemon drop" is also the password to Harry's personal quarters (there's some trivia for you!).
This isn't a normal cookbook. It isn't normal in any sense of the word. It's a treasure. -
COCINA CON HARRY POTTER 😜⚡🍻🥧
¡Hola brujas y magos! ¿Cómo estáis? ¿La vida mundana se os hace cuesta arriba? A mí también, para qué te voy a engañar 😂😂 Pero si hay algo que tenemos en común muggles y hechiceros es que a los dos nos gusta comer 🤣🤣
Por eso hoy os enseño este recetario tan chulo que me llegó el otro día de parte de @duomoediciones en el que vienen detalladas 150 recetas de platos y bebidas que se han visto en los libros o películas de Harry Potter, además cada una te señala dónde se vio.
Recetas tan míticas como la tarta de melaza, la sopa de cebolla de Kreacher, la primera tarta de cumpleaños de Harry, empanadillas y zumo de calabaza yyyyy cerveza de mantequilla 😍😍🍺
Además edición me parece súper cuidada y bonita 🖤 Todo un lujo para los amantes del mundo mágico y del buen comer 🤤 -
Such a fun book! I always forget I have this and haven't used it nearly enough! Must remedy that soon. We've only tried one recipe out of it (made it twice) and it was really good!
MOLLY’S MEATBALLS WITH ONION SAUCE
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To be fair ... I did actually read/skim over this cookbook WANTING to love it. And I still love the idea of it. But I didn't actually try cooking any of the recipes.
There are several things in here that I would have changed.
1) No photos. No photos at all. I know that makes cookbooks cost more (and not all cookbooks have them) but for not particularly gifted cooks like myself, well. We kind of need the photos.
2) Not particularly easy looking recipes. Again ... kind of depends on what you're looking for in a cookbook. Willing to put forth a little effort? This might be just the thing for you. Most of it was a little complicated for my tastes, much as I think it would be grand to plan an HP party.
3) The organization. For example, chapter one is titled "Good Food with Bad Relatives." All of the recipes are in some way related to Harry's experiences with the Dursleys. That puts a recipe for bacon and eggs next to a recipe for double chocolate ice cream cones--which feels odd. There is an index, so I guess that's something.
Too bad they couldn't get (or maybe didn't even try) "official" status so that they could have included direct quotes. Or, again, maybe photos from the movie. I just like visual both my cookbooks and tie-in anythings. -
Πέτυχα το βιβλίο ψάχνοντας συνταγές με κίτρινη κολοκύθα, σαν αυτές που σερβίρουν στο Χόγκουαρτς τη μέρα του Χάλοουιν. Ενδιαφέρον είναι, συνδέει κάθε συνταγή με αναφορές από τα βιβλία. Οι περισσότερες συνταγές είναι "κλασσική αγγλική κουζίνα", ίσως λίγο πειραγμένες. Μου άρεσε και σαν ανάγνωσμα, πέρα από το χρηστικό του πράγματος. Θα μείνει σίγουρα στο τάμπλετ μου για κάθε χρήση :-)
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Yummy food inspired from the Potter-verse
10/10 recommend -
I keep being disappointed by book tie in cookbooks.
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Includes quotes and passages from the books that inspired the recipes - though most are just traditional British foods. I couldn't believe there wasn't a recipe for butterbeer which has got to be the most popular wizarding food any Muggle would like to try, but there are many others on the net. I also like cookbooks with pictures which this doesn't have. Still a good addition to your HP library.
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I absolutely love this! I’m definitely not a great cook, but I’ve spent the day going through this cookbook and I’m so stoked to give all of these recipes a go. It’s things like this that contribute so much to bringing the Harry Potter books to life.
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Nulla più di una bieca operazione commerciale che sfrutta il nome del mago più famoso del mondo per vendere copie di uno pseudo ricettario...ricette che non hanno niente a che vedere con la saga della Rowlings, spiegate male e impreparabili...la ricetta più interessante? Il gelato: prendete una pallina di gelato alla crema e mettetela in una coppetta, poi aggiungete una pallina di gelato al cioccolato, una pallina di gelato alla nocciola e ricoprite il tutto di granella di pistacchio...questo è il livello del libro.
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Nothing more than a grim commercial operation that uses the name of the most famous magician in the world to sell copies of a pseudo-cookbook: recipes that have nothing to do with the Rowlings saga, badly explained and not cookable ... the more interestingrecipe? The ice cream: take a scoop of cream ice cream and put it in a cup, then add a scoop of chocolate ice cream, a scoop of hazelnut ice cream and cover it all with chopped pistachios ... this is the level of the book. -
I admit it, I adore tie-in cookbooks. Redwall, Discworld, even Fanny Flagg's Whistle Stop Cafe cookbook...you find me a cookbook that ties in with a series I enjoy and I'll snap it up, lickety-split. That's why I was so excited to find The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. Even since I first read the books, the food mentioned in them fascinated me, not just the traditional British food (which, due to my Anglophilia, I've long been interested in), but the strange and wonderful wizard food, food which I wondered how it could be translated into real-world equivalents. It's obvious from Dinah Bucholz's writing that she, too, is fascinated by those dishes mentioned by Rowling and it's also apparent that she's given a lot of thought and put a lot of effort into creating the dishes listed in this cookbook. Each one is headed by a synopsis of the scene in which the dish appears and most have sidebars full of trivia related to the dish or the ingredients used. Tips, techniques and ways to make some of the dishes more like those in the books (especially as applies to the food served by Hagrid) appear at the end of many of the recipes. The instructions are clearly written, as they should be seeing how this is directed more towards young cooks, book and web sources are clearly listed, and the index is extensive, making it easy to find a particular dish. I haven't had the opportunity to test any of the recipes out; should I do so and meet with success, I'll be sure to add another star to my rating.
Note: Due to the unofficial nature of this cookbook, being unaffiliated, licensed or endorsed by J.K. Rowling or Warner Bros., some famous recipes, most notably Butterbeer, aren't included due to their licensed state. However, a quick web search will garner you several takes on Butterbeer as well as many other Potter treats which might be missing from this book, although, considering the extensive number of recipes contained in this book (over 150), there can't be that many. -
This book is an unauthorized cookbook printed as if it were an old book with parchment papers and purpleish ink. Each chapter has a theme and contains paraphrased quotes from the American editions of the books. I prefer the British editions but this cookbook is solely for an American audience.
Chapter One: Good Food with Bad Relatives
This section contains homemade dishes such as Aunt Petunia might make or things purchased and eaten by the Dursleys (and Harry if he's lucky). Ever wonder what a knickerbocker glory was? Here's a recipe (ice cream, custard, Jell-O, whipped cream, fruit, syrup, nuts layered as a parfait).
The author imagines Petunia's pudding from
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a strawberry trifle.
There are also cake recipes to imagine what types of cakes Harry's friends would send for his birthday while the Dursleys were on a diet. None of these cakes is traditionally British.
I did not like seeing ingredients such as Jell-O listed when the recipe includes directions for homemade custard.
Chapter Two: Delights Down the Alley contains varied dishes like ice cream, burgers and chocolate pudding. Again all of these seem very American to me and yes I've been to England and lived there with a host family for a few months. The most amusing but necessary recipe is how to make a proper cuppa. They forgot to strain the leaves and pour the tea into cups LOL!
Chapter Three: Treats from the Train has the fun stuff mentioned in the books like pumpkin pasties and pumpkin juice. There are also pancakes (with a sidenote on Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day and classically British pies. I might try a bite of pumpkin pasty if someone else made it but nothing else
appeals to me.
Chapter Four: Recipes from a Giant and an Elf includes Hagrid's rock cakes but these are cinnamon raisin scones and not Hagrid's literal hard as a rock cakes. Better for your teeth. Bath Buns, Harry's first (chocolate) birthday cake, Hagrid's famous treacle fudge and some of Kreacher's savory dinner recipes are also included. I think almond-ginger-peach treacle tart is a strange combination and I'd rather see just plain treacle tart.
Chapter Five: The Favorite Cook's Dishes contains Mrs. Weasley's favorite dishes. Many sweets, American blueberry muffins, mince pies, Molly's meatballs with onion sauce, chicken dishes, mashed turnips, classic British pies, etc. Molly is an amazing cook and you need some skills for some of these recipes.
Chapter Six: Breakfast Before Class includes some of Harry's favorite breakfasts like fried sausage patties, porridge with cream and treacle, the classic English fry up, traditional English marmalade, lots of fried foods and the odd one out-cinnamon pull-apart breakfast rolls. That last one sounds good and is topped with cream cheese icing. This section is very classically British and what I would expect to be served at Hogwarts.
Chapter Seven: Lunch and Dinner in the Dining Hall includes roast beef of old England, Yorkshire pudding, chops, potatoes, veggies, English tomato ketchup, savory pies, bangers and mash (lots of pub food here) and more. There's also Fleur's favorite, Bouillabaisse and nine recipes from the goblet. Are those drink recipes? No! The goblet recipes are: derby savory pudding, pease pudding, Irish stew, Lancashire hot pot, brown Windsor soup, cock-a-leekie, scotch broth, Queen Victoria's soup. While I appreciate the inclusion of these old recipes I question whether anyone makes some of them anymore and whether the young chefs will want to try them. This section also contains Cornish pasties,
There are some recipes that haven't been tested and state to make them at your own risk such as Haggis. Black pudding isn't even something one can make in the U.S. because the purchase of animal blood is illegal. WHY even include these recipes then? Who would even want to try them?
Chapter Eight: Desserts and Snacks at School is my favorite section. We know Dumbledore has a sweet tooth and the passwords to his office tend to be his favorite candies. The cookbook contains a recipe for lemon drop and then explains how there is a British sweet known as a sherbet lemon which is different. Sherbet lemon is actually the password. It was stupidly changed for the American edition of the book and changed back for the movie. Either way, candy making is difficult and not for me. I liked reading the recipes though! If you're going to make any of them you will need a candy thermometer. There are also some weird ice cream flavors like brown bread. Again ice cream making requires special equipment and loads more patience than I have. It would have been nice to include some no-churn recipes. One of the more British recipes is Spotted Dick, a Victorian suet pudding with raisins. There's also rice pudding, a quintessential British school dessert! There are so many delicious sounding recipes in this section! One recipe to be wary of, if Fred and George Weasley offer it to you, is custard creams. Alas, these custard creams are made by Muggles and won't turn anyone into a canary. It's just a vanilla sandwich cookie.
Chapter Nine: Holiday Fare has everything from English muffins to homemade marshmallows and Christmas pudding for kids and eggnog for kids (alcohol free). I'm not sure why stewed tripe and onions sounded like a good idea to include. Goulash doesn't sound appealing from the name but looking at the ingredients I can see some kids might try it but probably wouldn't like it.
Chapter Ten: Treats in the Village has more candy recipes both sour and sweet! There are hard ones that need a candy thermometer (and an adult) and easy ones made with peanut butter and Rice Krispies. I've made those before and they're quick, easy and taste great.
I like how this cookbook makes recipes kid-friendly, like fruitcake made without alcohol. This cookbook includes a section on notes as well with a list of sources for both recipes and background information in print and online. I very much appreciated this because I was wondering what the author's source material was for some of these dishes.
I do not like how the print is so tiny I can barely read it. I also do not like the font color or the lack of photographs. I didn't really feel the need to copy down any recipes. I have similar recipes from elsewhere because this is all normal food. I picked this up thinking it was recipes inspired by Harry Potter like wizard food and cute decorations inspired by the characters and Hogwarts.
If you want a good traditional British cookbook there are others with pictures you can buy. -
Alright, this was a pretty fun read. There was such a huge variety of recipes to try out! There were a few that I felt were a bit redundant (Bacon and eggs??) While others were a tad more advanced. I loved how you actually got a bit of a history lesson with all the dishes. All together though I felt this really captured the palate that you would find at Hogwarts.
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I really loved this! I read every.single.word. which is totally bizarre since it's a cookbook. Each recipe begins with where in the book, exactly, it made an appearance in the Harry Potter books. Sidebars for each recipe give some food history or fun facts about the dish (I learned a lot about cooking in medieval times and recipes/cookbooks from the late 1600's to early 1900's especially). From the recipes themselves and the sidebars, I made the determination that I do not care to ever eat in England. Reading the instructions and ingredients (all totally fattening and hazardous to any of my diet plans) allowed me to fantasize about each dish, often with total confusion. Like, how the heck do these things go together? The spectrum of meaning for the word "pudding" baffles me and will continue to baffle me until I actually try to make about 10 of these things, but it's eating them that would pose the problem. Anyway, it was an EXPERIENCE reading this book, and I highly recommend it. So far, the only thing I actually made was the snack trolley witch's Pumpkin Pasties, which are DELICIOUS, but I plan to eventually make a variety of "puddings" including toad-in-the hole and Pease Porride/pudding/pottage and fattening soups while pretending that I'm the King or Queen of England.
I thank the Coronavirus for providing the time, inspiration, and motivation to explore my cookbooks and some interesting reading that I otherwise wouldn't have done. -
Ni que decir tiene que amo el mundo de Harry Potter y todo lo relacionado con él. De pequeña seguí las publicaciones de los libros y vi todas las películas en su estreno, así que cuando descubrí este libro lo primero que pensé es que necesitaba tenerlo en mis manos. Y dicho esto, ¡aquí tenéis mi opinión!
Esta reseña será un poco peculiar porque os voy a hablar de un recetario ambientado en el universo de Harry Potter. Puede ser que parezca una lectura típica, pero la verdad es que este libro me ha sorprendido para bien. Para empezar, este libro contiene alrededor de unas 150 recetas muy variadas, por lo que cocina tenemos para rato. Además, su división por capítulos es un punto a favor porque, más o menos, puedes localizar las recetas sin ningún tipo de problemas. Cocina con Harry Potter está dividido en diez capítulos titulados:
Buena comida con malos parientes
Delicias del callejón
Caprichos en el tren
Los favoritos de la cocinera
Desayuno antes de clase
Almuerzo y cena en el Gran Comedor
Postres y refrigerios del colegio
Menú de vacaciones
Caprichos en el pueblo
Me parecía interesante comentar el título de cada capítulo porque entiendo que más o menos os haréis una idea del contenido (aunque bueno, igual hay que echarle imaginación). Lo que sí os puedo aclarar es que podemos cocinar de todo: sopas, caldos y gachas, carnes, pescados, huevos, verduras y guarniciones, postres, helados, caramelos y golosinas, bebidas y panes, bollos y pastas. Una vez que tenemos los títulos y los tipos de comida (que vienen siendo todos), ahora toca adentrarse en el contenido de cada uno de los capítulos.
Al principio de cada capítulo se introduce un poco la temática de las recetas que se van a ver en dicho capítulo, por supuesto, siempre a través de referencias a los libros de Harry Potter.
Las recetas están muy bien explicadas. En la parte izquierda de la página tenemos los ingredientes y en la parte derecha una anécdota real sobre el plato en cuestión. En la siguiente página (o siguientes páginas) nos encontramos con las instrucciones, claramente explicadas, para realizar nuestra deliciosa comida o bebida.
Lo interesante es que en la zona superior, y al principio de cada receta, existe un pequeño texto que relaciona un momento o situación acaecido en la saga de Harry Potter con el contenido de la receta.
Quiero aclarar que, si bien el recetario está ambientado en este mundo, no todas las recetas son de platos «mágicos». De hecho, la mayoría de ellas pueden pasar por comida muggle, al fin y al cabo toda comida parte de la misma base. Por último, quiero añadir que al final del libro tenemos el índice de las recetas y varias páginas de anotaciones para apuntar cualquier cosita.
La autora ha hecho un gran trabajo con este recetario. Se nota que se ha documentado muy bien, y queda demostrado que tiene muchos conocimientos sobre este mundo.
Cocina con Harry Potter es un libro que contiene recetas originales y otras más conocidas cuyo punto en común son las referencias del universo de Harry Potter. Un libro muy útil para todas aquellas personas que amen la cocina y quieran innovar en sus platos. -
I love Harry Potter. I love food. I love the food from Harry Potter. Reading about treats like butterbeer and treacle tarts used to make me want to be a witch just so I could enjoy them. I thought this book and I would get along great. Unfortunately, this cookbook is mediocre at best.
I will first make the same complaint everyone else is making: there's no pictures. Not one. There's 150 recipes of delicious sounding things, and not a picture among them. It was pretty disappointing.
It starts with a nice introduction and has some helpful hints. I did like the way it was divided, which was by location. That way you could look specifically for food from Hogwarts or at the Weasleys'. The steps are numbered, and the recipes are peppered with hints and fun historical facts, as well as guides for making substitutions, which I appreciated. I also liked that each recipe came with a paragraph explaining which book and chapter the recipe was from, along with some context.
One thing that bugged me about this is that there's a stress on having both kid and adult versions of recipes like fruitcake. I don't understand why this is. The alcohol cooks out.... It isn't necessary to remove alcohol before serving it to minors. It's for flavor, not to get drunk. It's a cake.
I also really didn't appreciate that some of these recipes haven't even been tested by the author: and she admits it in the text. If you didn't want to make it, why the hell would I want to? In a similar vein, some of these recipes were kind of lazy. Bacon and eggs is two separate recipes in this book; one for bacon, and one for eggs.... Really? Also, one of the recipes point blank says that candied orange peel is impossible to find, so she just omitted it and used marmalade. First, this is a cookbook- make them yourself. Second, why would you admit that? Just don't put that note in at all, and no one would think twice about it.
And yet another thing that I have seen in a lot of reviews: there's no butterbeer. Not even a butterbeer inspired cake or anything. It's just gone. How can you overlook the most popular treat in the HP universe? No firewhiskey either, but that's splitting hairs.
Despite the copious amount of issues I had with this, there are still some dishes that I would really like to try. Some of them include Christmas Pudding Ice Cream, No Bake Chocolate-Bottom Pumpkin Tart, and Almond-Ginger-Peach Treacle Tart.
All in all, I'd recommend this for really, really new cooks and maybe kids. But as an adult, I don't really need recipes for a lot of these things. I'll hang on to it purely for the Harry Potter theme, but probably won't use it much.
This review can also be found on my blog,
Bitches n Prose. -
Nej. Nej nej nej. Jag trodde jag skulle bli superinspirerad av den här kokboken men icke. Genom att snabbt bläddra igenom den upptäcker du att det finns absolut noll bilder. Inga alls. Inte på något recept. Vilket gör hela boken till en tråkig, svartvit katastrof med hemska pergamentutklipp som gör det ännu mer grått och inte inspirerande.
jag hade så himla höga förhoppningar, hade tänkt köpa boken om den visade sig vara en bra receptbok. Och jag vet inte, kanske recepten är bra men jag orkar inte ens ta reda på det för det är sån snoozefest.
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Cute and witty! Though many of the recipes aren't up my alley, I still enjoyed reading the book. The desserts sound delicious!
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No recipe for butterbeer though
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Quite a collection of potions and dishes.
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Bangers and mash with Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Hogwarts dining hall. A proper cuppa tea and rock cakes in Hagrid's hut.
Cauldron cakes and pumpkin juice on the Hogwarts Express.
With
this cookbook, dining a la Hogwarts is as easy as Banoffi Pie! With
more than 150 easy-to-make recipes, tips, and techniques, you can
indulge in spellbindingly delicious meals drawn straight from the pages
of your favorite Potter stories, such as:
Treacle Tart--Harry's
favorite dessert, Molly's Meat Pies--Mrs. Weasley's classic dish,
Kreacher's French Onion Soup, Pumpkin Pasties--a staple on the Hogwarts
Express cart
With a dash of magic and a drop of creativity, you'll
conjure up the entries, desserts, snacks, and drinks you need to
transform ordinary Muggle meals into magickal culinary masterpieces,
sure make even Mrs. Weasley proud!
I thought of the Bookies Become Foodies week and was excited to make and share some creations from my favorite reads. Then, when I came to actually deciding what to make, I had nothing. Complete brain fart. So, Amazon to the rescue. I found an amazing cookbook I had to add immediately to my library. Harry Potter is my favorite series. I cannot wait to get to Universal Studios, so in the mean time, I am living a little piece of Harry Potter in my own kitchen.
Rock Cakes were eaten by multiple times in the book. Hagrid loved them, although they were a lot more like rocks than cakes when Hagrid made them. The cakes appear in The Sorcerer's Stone, The Goblet of Fire and The Half Blood Prince! This recipe is found on page 53.
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter - cold, cut into chunks
1 large egg
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup raisins
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and flour a large cookie sheet. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl. With your fingertips, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture reaches the consistency of wet sand.
Beat the egg together with the milk and pour it into the flour-butter mixture. Fold it together using a spatula to form a stiff dough. Fold in the raisins. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet.
Bake 25 minutes or until the bottoms are golden, rotating the pan midway through baking.
Makes 12
I am not sure why, but this Treacle Fudge recipe peeked my interest. I love fudge, the texture, the sweetness - so dreamy. With the addition of molasses, I had to try it. The note in the margin of the book stated that "some speculate that a batch of caramels came out wrong - fudged - but it seems it was invented in the United States." I have never had fudge that wasn't chocolate or peanut butter, so this was a fun new baking adventure. It looked like a lot of steps in the directions, but with my mixer, it was fairly easy.
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed dark sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoon black treacle or dark molasses
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Grease an 8x8 inch square pan and set aside. Combine the sugars, butter, heavy cream treacle and cream of tartar in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly, until the butter is melted and the ingredients are combined. Was down the sides of the pot with a pastry brush dipped in hot water if sugar crystals form on the sides, to prevent recrystallization. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot and continue to cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 240 degrees on the candy thermometer.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Allow the bubbles to subside and the mixture to cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove the thermometer and beat or stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture loses its gloss and is very thick, 15 to 20 minutes. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. You can use a piece of plastic wrap and the palm of your hand to do it.
Cool completely before cutting into 1-inch squares.
Makes 64 pieces
I cannot wait to get to see these treats in the Honeydukes Shop - but while I wait and plan my next vacation, I will definitely make more treats from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook!
For more reviews visit
A Flurry of Ponderings
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I especially love the second paragraph of the forward on page xi, where the author points out Harry's need for a sense of kinship and family.
After spending fewer than 10 minutes with this book, thank you Liz, I realize that I must get my own copy try all these recipes and share them with friends while watching Harry Potter preferably!
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