[Sca-cooks] Harry Potter munchies

[Alex Clark]

At 05:12 PM 4/1/2004 -0500, Ardenia wrote:
>Right before the first Harry Potter film was released, Rosie O'Donnell had 
>a guest on her show with basic recipes for the treats featured in the 
>films. Below they are as I remember them.
. . .
>Cauldron cakes- regular brownies baked in mini or standard muffin 
>pans.  Poke a finger into the top whil cooling.  Add a puff of cotton 
>candy "billowing'" from this hole as the "smoke"

This can't be right -- they have to be stackable. From PoA5 (p. 79 in the 
Scholastic edition): ". . . she handed Harry a large stack of Cauldron 
Cakes." There's another stack of them in GoF11. My guess (from the analogy 
of the names) is that these might be like Welsh griddle cakes, or something 
similarly firm for eating as finger food. If cooked in a cauldron, they 
might cooked in deep fat rather than on a greased surface.

>Pumpkin pastries- use sugar cookie dough (homemade, refrigerated, made 
>from mix) as the crust.  The recipe said to fit it into tart pans 
>etc...  the fill with pumpkin pie filling flavored to taste.  I personally 
>just make large round sugar cookies, drop the filling on by spoonfuls and 
>then pinch up the edges over the filling to form a small "pouch"  --this 
>is somewhat like the Magic Middles by Keebler from the 80's.   You then 
>bake the"pastries" in either form until slightly gloden bu still a bit soft.

They must have misread. These are pasties, not just any kind of pastries. I 
don't know of any "canonical" description. My best guess is flaky pastry 
wrapped around punkin chunks with sugar and spice, possibly mixed with 
other fruits and/or veggies.

-- 
Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon