Dudley Dursley's Knickerbocker Glory

Author: Rowling, J.K.
Book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Difficulty rating: Little Women
Deliciousness rating: NEWT

They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first  (Rowling UK 24-25, US 26).


DUDLEY DURSLEY'S KNICKERBOCKER GLORY
Adapted from BBC Good Food's recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 pints of Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream
• Peach layer
• 3-4 large peaches
• 75g golden caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp for coulis
• Large basil leaves
• 75 ml Aquavit
• Raspberry coulis:
• 250-300g fresh raspberries
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 250g fresh strawberries, hulled
• 100g thin round crisp biscuits (we had hazelnut cookies from La Boulange)
• Fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
• Tuiles or cigarillos, to serve
• Mint sprigs, to serve

Directions:

1. Cut the peaches into 8 wedges. 

2. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan and sprinkle in 75g of sugar. Melt to a light caramel without stirring.

3. Lay in the peaches and sprinkle over the remaining 75g sugar. Shake the pan gently to mix the contents.

4. Stir in the basil leaves and 75ml Aquavit and cook for another 5 mins.

5. Put the peaches into a shallow bowl to cool (we refrigerated them a bit). Add a good bit of cold water in the pan and reheat till it dissolves. Pour over the peaches and cool. We put it in the refrigerator, as it was a hot day.

6. Crush raspberries in a bowl with 1 tbs sugar and lemon juice. Add a splash of lemon simple syrup, if you already have some like Jenne did. Blend till smooth.

7. Cut strawberries into wedges.

It's helpful to make an assembly line of ingredients, like so.

8. Layer peaches, strawberries, raspberries, cookies, ice cream, repeat.

9. Scoop ice cream on top, whipped cream if desired, and decorate with berries, mint, and Pirouline.

Jenne whipped the cream and flavored it 
with almond extract, which went beautifully
with the peaches. Recommended!

Did it measure up?

It was even more delicious than we imagined! It was such a perfect, summery dessert on a hot day. We luckily found excellent peaches at Ripe, a produce stand in North Park. (Good peaches are SO HARD to find.) We would probably leave out the strawberries next time -- they felt unnecessary, since the raspberry/peach combination is pretty great as it is.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1997.