The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook (10 page)
“Pheasant, peasant? What a pleasant present!” This famous line from William Steig's
Shrek
is terrific because “pheasant” is a hard word to rhyme. The Romans, of course, are the ones who introduced this pleasant present to England. But not for the peasants. In feudal times, the lord of the manor kept busy with hunting and falconry, but peasants also trapped birds, and on a lucky day, they might find a pheasant or a partridge in the traps.
1 onion, sliced into ¼-inch-thick slices
2 celery ribs, cut into chunks
2 carrots, cut into chunks
4 cloves garlic
1 pheasant
Olive oil for brushing on the pheasant
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup water
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lay the onion slices in a roasting pan and scatter the celery, carrots, and garlic cloves on top.
Rinse the pheasant in cold water and pat it dry with paper towels. Place the pheasant in the roasting pan, breast side up, wings tucked under. Brush the olive oil over the pheasant and sprinkle it with the salt and pepper. Pour the water into the roasting pan.
Put the pan in the oven and roast for 45 minutes, or until the juices run clear.
Remove the pheasant from the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes before carving.
Serves 4
Recipes from a Giant and an Elf
Hagrid is the bravest person Harry ever knew, and even if he's an awful cook, you have to admire his adventurous spirit in the kitchen. Foods that even experienced cooks leave to the professionals don't daunt him. He's not afraid to try his hand at treacle fudge (true, it will glue your teeth together) or even twice-raised Bath buns.
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, lives in a small one-room wooden hut near the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. He is enormously proud of the two important tasks he's been entrusted with: delivering Harry to the Dursleys after his parents are killed and returning him to Hogwarts when he reaches school age. Hagrid takes a special interest in Harry, and a friendship springs up between them (see
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone).
Harry and his friends often visit Hagrid for tea, where they learn that experience in cooking does not guarantee good results. They pretend to enjoy Hagrid's rock cakes, which break your teeth, or beef casserole with a talon mixed in. Have no fear: the recipes that follow, unlike Hagrid's, do yield excellent results, but if you have real Harry Potter spirit, follow the special instructions to make them turn out like Hagrid's.
This treat, if the word may be applied to something Hagrid made, is often found in his pantry, as it's mentioned no less than three times in the Harry Potter series in relation to Hagrid. Although Hagrid's rock cakes were nothing to write home about, you'll find these to be quite tasty (see
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
, Chapter 8;
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
, Chapter 3;
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
, Chapter 11).
Rock cakes, standard with tea, look like but don't taste like rocks, unless of course you leave them out for several days, which is probably what Hagrid did. Rock cakes have a short history and seem to have been invented by the Victorians.
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold butter, cut into chunks
1 large egg
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup raisins
Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease 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 for 25 minutes or until the bottoms are golden, rotating the pan midway through baking.
Makes 12
For rock-hard rock cakes like Hagrid's, just bake them for too long and eat them a week later at your own risk!
It's hard to imagine a woman so heartless that she wouldn't ever, ever bake — or at least buy — a birthday cake for her motherless nephew. But such is indeed the case for Harry Potter, who meets his first birthday cake when he turns eleven, courtesy of Hagrid (see
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
, Chapter 4).
Cocoa beans were so precious to the ancient Aztecs that they used them as money. The Spanish explorers brought the beans back to Spain in the 1500s, and from there it was only a matter of time for chocolate to catch on in the rest of Europe and for the final product to be perfected. We have the Dutch to thank for figuring out how to make chocolate and cocoa powder as we know it and the Swiss for thinking of adding milk.
Chocolate Cake
¾ cup boiling water
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon instant coffee
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Chocolate Glaze
8 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate
¾ cup heavy cream
¼ stick (2 tablespoons) butter
¼ cup corn syrup
Chocolate Frosting
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ of the above Chocolate Glaze recipe
Green Icing
1 cup confectioners' sugar
Water to form a paste
Green food coloring
To make the cake layers, preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
Whisk together the boiling water, cocoa powder, and instant coffee in a measuring cup or small bowl until smooth; set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each until incorporated and scraping down the sides as needed. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the hot cocoa mixture and beat until combined, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the flour mixture and stir on the slowest speed until combined. Finish by scraping the bottom of the bowl with a spatula and folding it in. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 20 minutes, until the cakes feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached. Be careful, as this cake overbakes easily. Cool the layers in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack and cool completely.
To prepare the glaze, place the chocolate, heavy cream, butter, and corn syrup in a bowl and microwave for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Cool the glaze until it is thick but still pourable.
To prepare the frosting, place the butter, confectioners' sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides as needed, about 7 minutes. Add half of the cooled glaze and beat until combined. If the frosting is too soft to spread, chill for 10 minutes and beat again. Chill another 10 minutes and beat again if necessary.
To make the icing, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time to the confectioners' sugar and mix to form a thick paste. Work in the food coloring to tint it to the desired shade of green.
To assemble the cake, place one layer top-side down on a cardboard round. Spread ¾ cup of the frosting over the cake and smooth it to the edges. Place the second layer top-side up over the first and spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides. Pour the remaining glaze over the cake and smooth it to the edges, allowing it to drip unevenly over the sides. (If the glaze is too stiff, warm briefly in the microwave and whisk to distribute the heat evenly. You may need to wait again for the glaze to cool.) If you have any frosting left, use it to pipe a decorative border around the bottom of the cake. Place the icing in a pastry bag fitted with a #3 round tip and write “Happy Birthday Harry” on top of the cake. The cake will look homemade. It's supposed to; Hagrid made it.
Serves 16
Instead of a pastry bag, you can use a sandwich bag. Snip off a small hole in one corner, fill it with the icing, and squeeze it through the hole.
When Hagrid invites Harry and Ron to tea in
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(Chapter 14), Ron thinks Hagrid wants to hear all about how he was almost attacked by Sirius Black. But Hagrid wants to talk to them about… Hermione. So they sit down, feeling guilty on two counts: they've forgotten about helping Hagrid with Buckbeak's trial and they haven't been good friends to Hermione. But their guilty feelings don't stop them from refusing Hagrid's Bath buns; they know only too well what to expect.
The city of Bath in the southwest of England is famous not only for its hot springs and Roman baths but also for a delightful pastry known as the Bath bun. The creation of this little cake is attributed, probably incorrectly, to eighteenth-century physician William Oliver. Historians question why a doctor who developed food (such as the Bath Oliver biscuit) to aid the digestion of his patients would prescribe such a rich pastry.
¼ cup warm water
2¼ teaspoons (1 packet) active dry yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
½ cup whole milk
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) butter
2½ cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Grated zest of 1 orange
¾ cup dried currants or dried sweetened cranberries
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for brushing over the buns
Turbinado sugar, for sprinkling (Introduction)
Grease and flour a cookie sheet and set aside. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray and set aside. Combine the water, yeast, and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a mixing bowl and set aside until the yeast is puffy, about 10 minutes. Heat the milk, water, and butter in a saucepan until the butter is melted. Set aside but keep warm (not hot; if it's too hot it will kill the yeast).
Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Whisk the eggs, lemon zest, and orange zest into the milk mixture. Add the yeast mixture, milk mixture, currants or cranberries, and caraway seeds to the flour mixture; mix to combine. Knead the dough in the bowl or on a lightly floured work surface 10 to 15 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. The dough will be sticky and you will be tempted to add flour as you knead. Resist the temptation. The dough will gradually become less sticky as you knead. However, if it does not become less sticky as you knead, add flour 1 tablespoon at a time. If you have a stand mixer you can knead the dough with the dough hook; it will be a lot easier.
Place the dough in the oiled bowl and turn the dough to coat (or spray the top with cooking spray). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set to rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and divide in half. Divide in half again; then divide each quarter in half to form 8 pieces of dough. Roll each piece into a ball. Put the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave to rise until doubled in volume, 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush the beaten egg over the buns and sprinkle with the turbinado sugar. Bake the buns for 15 minutes until the tops are golden brown, switching and rotating the pans midway through baking. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 8 buns
