Motto – Kuchen mit Lea

Do you know which Hogwarts house you’re in? I probably am a Gryffinclaw, but I was sorted into Ravenclaw at Pottermore, which is by the way a b r i l l i a n t website. It is amazing to discover how much thoughts J.K. Rowling had given to the world of Harry Potter. Did you know she had begun establishing rules for her characters and the universe 5 years before she actually started writing?

All the more reason to throw a Harry Potter Party and pay her some tribute. For refreshments, I served Amortentia Potion (basically a red fruit flavoured punch), Pumpkin Juice and hot Butterbeer. I stumbled across so many different versions of Butterbeer, but in the end I made my own version of it, though I haven’t stopped trying.

Amortentia

Ah, the love potion. I wonder what it would smell like for me. Maybe like Chocolate Chip Cookies straight from the oven, a bracing spring morning and freshly ground coffee. But the Amortentia I’ve made smells like raspberries, pomegranate, sparkling wine and elderflower. I combined white and sparkling wine, added some elderflower syrup and grenadine to sweeten and some red fruits for taste and colour. You can use raspberries, pomegranates, strawberries, red currants or cherries for red colour, or if you want it to be rather violetish use blueberries and blackberries. You can really become a potions master here and just put everything into the cauldron that matches with your imagination of the Amortentia. But beware of who you’re giving this potion to. You might end up with more admirer at the end of the party than you’d wished for!

Pumpkin Juice

Don’t panic, if the pumpkin season is already over. The truth is, I didn’t use much pumpkin in this recipe. Instead I used carrot juice, pineapple juice, apple juice and lime juice and just a few spoons of pumpkin puree. Anyway, you should serve the pumpkin juice ice cold. I filled it into water bottles and stored it in the cold outside. It was very refreshing and very much as I had imagined. I definetely understand why Harry longs so often for ice cold pumpkin juice in the summer.

Butterbeer

Toss your books and quills aside, make a trip to Hogsmeade and enjoy a steaming cup of Butterbeer. In most recipes, people use cream soda to recreate the delicious flavour from the Butterbeer that is served in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. But since cream soda is not available, I tried something else. As J.K. Rowling described Butterbeer „to taste a little bit like less sickly butterscotch.“, I made a butterscotch syrup. Blend some butterscotch into milk, add rum and you have your perfect cup of Butterbeer. I found another version with cider, ginger ale and whiskey and butterscotch syrup, which is not as heavy as the milk version but completely different.

If you want even more inspiration head out to Buzzfeed or Pinterest and be amazed at people’s love for Harry Potter.

For my second eleventh birthday, I decided to do a small Harry Potter themed party. I’d always wanted to do a theme party and since I am head over heels in love with the wizard world, Harry Potter was perfect. Initially I thought my friends would declare me a total geek and would politely say, they couldn’t come because they’d be … um really ill that day. But nothing of that sort! They even came with a costume! We had some Gryffindors and Slytherins, Professor McGonagall, Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter and even Lucius Malfoy! I was dressed up as Hermione, though I’d thought about dressing up as Moaning Myrte, Dobby or a Snitch first. It was quite fun and in the end, we even played some Quidditch Beer Pong. I think next time, I would think of more games to play or have some sort of entertainment.

But first let’s talk about the real stuff: Food.

There was Yorkshire Pudding, sausages (German Bratwurst of course), lentil soup with carrots and potatos, potato quiches, Cauldron Cakes, Snitch cupcakes, Jelly Belly Beans, Chocolate Wands and Acid Pops. In other words, I served way too much food and in the end everyone looked (or felt) like Aunt Marge after Harry blew her up like a balloon. But everyone got to get home with a plate full of cupcakes, so I guess nobody was really sad about the too much food part, right?

Potato Quiches

In order to save time, I made the dough for the quiches and cooked the potatos the night before. If you let your dough rest in the fridge overnight, be sure you take it out at least one hour before you want to use it again, otherwise it will be too hard. The quiche itself is really quick to arrange once you have the dough and potatos ready. I made the filling with sour cream and herbs and spices. You can also substitute the potatos and use pumpkin instead, add some courgettes or other veggies or even add bacon.

Cauldron Cakes

For the Cauldron Cakes, you need a chocolate cupcake base, chocolate ganache, buttercream or white chocolate with food colouring and some chocolate sticks, I used Mikado. My chocolate cupcakes were made with buttermilk and therefore soft and moist. If you prefer them more solid or less chocolatey, just use your favourite recipe. Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, remove the paper mold and turn the upcake upside down. Using a piping bag pipe a circle with the chocolate ganache onto the cupcake so it looks like the top of a cauldron. Mix the buttercream, white chocolate or frosting with your favourite colour and pipe it inside the chocolate ganache circle. You can vary with colours or top it with sprinkles and sugar pearls. Finally,push 1/3 of a Mikado stick or something else into the colored part as a spoon.

Snitch Cupcakes

For the Snitch cupcakes, you need a vanilla cupcake base, buttercream or white chocolate ganache with yellow food colouring and white chocolate. For the wings, melt the white chocolate and pipe a pair of wings for each cupcake on baking paper. They shouldn’t be too thin, otherwise they break. Be sure to make some extra wings anyway. I printed these wings and put them under the baking paper as a template, so you don’t really need any artisan skills for this. I made the wings the night before to make sure the chocolate hardened completely. I made vanilla almond cupcakes for the base and I made the yellow topping from scratch. I screwed it at first and somehow managed to save it again, but I suggest you just use your favourite recipe or use this one. I topped the frosting with some golden sugar sprinkles and pushed a wing on each side of the cupcake. If the cupcake is too hard or the wings too thin, you can cut a hole with a knife first and then put the wing inside.