Potter Party Part I: The Food

Hey Potter Friends,

So a few months ago I was extremely blessed in having the opportunity to travel to Europe. We hit seven different cities and five different countries in a three week period. It was super busy, super wet and super cold, but it was most definitely worth it. The last city we visited was London, England and as luck would have it, the WB Harry Potter Studio Tour had opened just a couple months before we went, so of course we had to schedule a pit stop :) I plan on writing a post about the tour (with accompanying photos) in the not too distant future. My whole point in mentioning the trip however, is that after experiencing the tour I've had Harry Potter brain 24/7, not that that's anything new, it's simply just intensified. I decided that I needed to act on this newly intensified passion for Harry Potter and throw a party. I mean, that's the logical thing to do right?

Let me just start by saying that I threw the party a couple days after Christmas and can I just say...BAD IDEA!! Never have I been so stressed out in my entire life, and that includes all the times I've procrastinated on papers in college. You think about all the stuff you have going on around Christmas time, all the activities, the shopping, the wrapping of presents, the making of food, the eating of food, and the family time! Then you add to that everything involved in throwing a party and it becomes madness really fast!! And believe me, I had been working on stuff for the party more than a month in advance and I was still running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything finished only minutes before guests arrived. The major reason for the stress though was that I had such a large number of people coming to the party that it meant a massive amount of preparation. Tip number one, keep your party small, or allow yourself a couple months of preparation, especially if you're throwing it at a time that might already be busy with other things.

So on to the party! In this post I am going to focus on the food of the party because let's face it, it's the most important part. I've got to give a HUGE shout out to my sister who slaved away in the kitchen the entire day before the party while I had to work. She made a large number of extravagant magical treats that I never would have been able to do without her. Literally. They just simply wouldn't have gotten done. I was so busy making mugs and decorations that although the party would have looked wonderful, there wouldn't have been anything to eat, and that simply wouldn't do. So thank you to my sister for her time and effort because without it there wouldn't have been any food, not to mention that it turned out so much better than it would have if I had had to make it, so once again, to her I extend a massive THANK YOU!

I'm going to start with the butterbeer because honestly it was the hit of the party. I was a little worried that people wouldn't like it because it can be really sweet, but it turns out I had no need to worry. In fact people were talking about how they wanted to dig into the bowl of butterbeer cream with a spoon it was so good. This is the reason why I so appreciate my sister and her skills in the kitchen. I made a test batch of butterbeer a couple of weeks before the party just so I could be sure I wouldn't poison anyone. The butterbeer itself actually tasted just like the stuff we had in London on the tour, minus the fact that I bought a cheap brand of cream soda and by the time I drank my butterbeer there was no bubbly...and butterbeer needs to have the bubbles. I was excited that the flavor was spot on and knew that with a different brand of cream soda it would be perfect. BUT THE CREAM!! I guess I just whipped the stuff for too long so when attempting to put it in my drink it just sort of went in clumps. It kind of reminded me of that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire where Robin Williams dips his face in a meringue pie and whilst making tea part of the pie falls off his face and splashes into the cup, except that my cream was much thicker. Ha! Anyway. Despite not being the perfect mixture between froth and cream as it was on the tour, the cream still tasted good so I wasn't going to worry about it. But as luck would have it, though it seemed more like stress than luck at the time, guests started arriving for the party and the butterbeer cream still wasn't made and I had yet to change into my costume, so as soon as my sister arrived with her kids I begged her to make the cream...and that is how and why it turned out so perfect, as can be seen in the picture below.

The other wonderful thing about the butterbeer were the mugs. I must say that I am pretty darn proud of those. They were the main source of stress during the party preparations as they took me several days to finish, set me behind on everything else and even made it so I didn't get to do some of the stuff I originally had planned for the party...but I think everyone liked them so that made it worth it. I'm sure you've seen tutorials for these mugs on Pinterest or in your surfing of the internet. They honestly aren't that hard to make and it wouldn't have been that stressful for me IF I hadn't had to make 25 of them!! I'll post a tutorial later on how to make the mugs, even though it's already all over the internet. I'll probably just add some tips and tricks I learned during the process. I'll also provide the recipe I used for the butterbeer, giving credit to its creator of course.

The next thing on the list that is definitely another favorite were the chocolate frogs. This is where I owe a huge thanks to that pesky little brother of mine that I mentioned in the previous post, though he's no longer little or pesky might I add. He stayed up with me till 5am the morning of the party, cutting, folding and hot gluing all of the chocolate frog boxes while I finished all of the butterbeer mugs. He was complaining that he started to get sloppy with the folding and gluing of the boxes, but in all honesty I think they turned out perfect. I love having a perfectionist for a brother.

We did place a chocolate frog inside a small candy bag and then inside each of the boxes, but we also had a plate of unpackaged frogs so that people could eat them without having to open their boxed ones.  Maybe no one would have cared if they had had to open them, but I'm the type of person that likes to keep that sort of thing and then display it on a shelf. My lovely sister whom I've mentioned several times was kind enough to make the chocolate frogs. She made solid milk chocolate ones for the boxes, and then got creative and put caramel in the middle of the ones that we left unwrapped and on a plate. They were delicious, but then I'm a sucker for chocolate...and caramel. I'll post the template I used for the boxes soon as well as what we used to make the chocolate frogs.

Fizzing Whizbees. I love how these turned out. Although they're not 100% authentic, I actually think I like these ones better than the official ones. The Fizzing Whizbees that you get at the studio tour in London are actually made of chocolate and are shaped like bees. I didn't buy any when I was there, therefore I've never actually tasted one so I'm not sure if the chocolate actually fizzes or not. When I first heard the name Fizzing Whizbees though, and before I'd actually seen what they looked like, "Fizzing" was what captured my attention, not the "bee," so I always pictured a candy similar to Zots. I don't know if you've ever had Zots before but basically they are a hard candy that has a fizzing center. I decided to forgo the bee and focus on the fizz and simply purchased an assortment of Zots candy that we then unwrapped and repackaged in small candy bags. This is another project that I was lucky enough to have help with. If it weren't for a certain friend of mine and yes, my mother, they wouldn't have gotten finished, so thank you! Template and info coming soon.

The most delicious treat of the night that ranks right up there with the butterbeer were the Pumpkin Pasties. I'm actually not sure what recipe was used to make them. I pretty much just told my sister what kind of baked goods I had in mind and then let her have her way with it. I did suggest that maybe she use our regular pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe, leaving out the chocolate chips and then taking two cookies and sandwiching them with a cream cheese frosting center. She did that, but she used a different pumpkin cookie recipe. They were SO moist. I could have eaten ten of them. I'll have to get the recipe from her so I can share it with you.

I've thrown a couple other Harry Potter parties before, though nothing as extravagant as this one, and one of the treats I've always made are Acid Pops. They're quick and easy and people typically love them. This time though I found Acid Pop artwork on therpf.com (the same place I found the Fizzing Whizbees artwork) so we printed out the Acid Pop labels on sticker paper and then stuck them on sucker bags. We also made sure to have some Acid Pops that were available to eat without the packaging, in case people wanted to keep them in their bags.

We used a traditional "no bake" cookie recipe and labeled them Cockroach Clusters.

Oreo truffles painted gold with edible spray paint served as Golden Snitch Truffles.

Apparently my sister saw this next one somewhere in her internet surfing, though I'd never seen it before. I thought it was very clever. You simply use some air pop popcorn and coat it with a green sugar mixture and...

I also got a bunch of candy that I just placed in jars and glasses around the table.

We had a couple other food items that I forgot to take pictures of and I'm still really bummed about it. Unfortunately that was the result of trying to get so much done so quickly. In fact, many of the pictures I did take were actually taken the day after the party, which is why there may seem to be so few of a certain item, such as the Fizzing Whizbees. The missing photos would have included cauldron cakes which were an upside down cupcake with the center hollowed out and then filled with white cream and embellished with a handle made of chocolate. There were pretzel wands, which has always been one of my favorite treats. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of them. We also had a couple of crock pots set out so that we could offer something savory to eat so that it wasn't all just sugar. One crock pot contained sweet 'n sour meat balls that we labeled Hogs Head Cornish Balls. The other crock pot had lil' smokies in BBQ sauce that we called Goblin Toes. There was a lot of good food at the party but the one thing that I simply ran out of time for, and I'm sure that you noticed was missing from the spread, were the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. I had the template for the box all ready to print out but we simply did not have time to cut them out and put them together. It was probably one of the most disappointing things in the food department. The only good thing that resulted from running out of time on those was that I saved myself a lot of money because Jelly Belly's are extremely expensive and having to provide enough for 25 boxes would have cost me a fortune!!

All in all I was very pleased with how all the food turned out and I think people really enjoyed it. I am extremely grateful for my sister who pretty much made EVERYTHING, and to my brother and a certain friend (you know who you are) who helped with the assembly of everything. Even my mom was a huge help on the day of the party by finishing the bags of Fizzing Whizbees and by bagging and boxing the chocolate frogs. The party literally came together at the very LAST possible minute and it wouldn't have been possible without my helpers so thank you!!

"When I'm 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I'll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me, ' After all this time?' And I will say, 'Always.' -- Alan Rickman

Upcoming Posts:

Potter Party Part II: The Decorations

Potter Party Part III: The Activities