Happy Birthday, Harry! Mrs Weasley's Snitch Cake

36 Eggs has moved! Our birthday post for Harry can now be found here.

The Three Broomsticks' Butterbeer

Author: Rowling, J.K.
Book: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Difficulty rating: Depends on the recipe chosen
Deliciousness rating: Depends heavily on the recipe and consumer's taste!

Ron came back five minutes later, carrying three foaming tankards of hot Butterbeer .... Harry drank deeply. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted and seemed to heat every bit of him from the inside. (Prisoner UK 218, US 201)

Harry Potter Feast with Friends

Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing. (Philosopher's UK 40 US 48)

On July 25, 36 Eggs hosted a Harry Potter Birthday Feast to celebrate the Chosen One's upcoming birthday. Only HP fans were allowed -- plus ones were BANNED if they hadn't read the books or at least watched the movies. We asked everyone to bring an HP treat to share, and the guests all stepped up their game. There was a truly staggering amount of food.

Mrs Weasley's Chicken & Ham Pie

Author: Rowling, J.K.
Book: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Difficulty rating: Little Women
Deliciousness rating: Exceeds Expectations (with salt added)

By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. To somebody who had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise, and at first, Harry listened rather than talked, as he helped himself to chicken-and-ham pie, boiled potatoes and salad. (Goblet UK 70, US 60)

Ron was there ... and so was Mrs Weasley, who could cook better than anyone he knew .... (Half-Blood UK 76, US 76)

Kreacher's Treacle Tart

Author: Rowling, J.K.
Book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Difficulty rating: Little Women
Deliciousness rating: Acceptable

'Master has not finished his soup, would Master prefer the savoury stew, or else the treacle tart to which Master is so partial?' (Book 7: UK 191, US 132)

Treacle tart is one of Harry's favorite "puddings," and it's #15 on the most common foods in the Harry Potter Food & Drink Index, sorted by frequency. Hogwarts seems to serve it fairly often; in fact, it's the first dessert that Harry has at Hogwarts.

Accio Treacle! Jenne got me this amazing apron, btw.

Hagrid's Treacle Toffee, Treacle Fudge & Tea

Author: Rowling, J.K.

Book: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Difficulty rating: TBD

Deliciousness rating: TBD

We had PG Tips with our treacle toffee and fudge!

Harry would have pointed out that trouble didn't come much worse than having slugs pouring out of your mouth, but he couldn't; Hagrid's treacle toffee had cemented his jaws together. (Chamber UK 88-89, US 115)

[Harry and Ron] hastily fed [Fang] treacle fudge from a tin on the mantelpiece, which glued his teeth together (Chamber UK 201, US 271).

[Harry] was being made a cup of strong tea back in Hagrid's hut, with Ron and Hermione (Philosopher's UK 141 US 191).

As dumb Americans, our first question was this: what on God's green Earth is treacle? According to our research (on Wikipedia), it's a by-product of refining sugar and can be varying degrees of darkness. Golden syrup is light in color and will be used in treacle tart later this month, and black treacle is basically the same thing as molasses.

In the U.K. version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid makes both treacle toffee and treacle fudge. (In the U.S. version, it's changed to treacle fudge in all instances. Why bother editing that? I mean, Americans know what toffee is.) Treacle fudge doesn't seem to be a real thing in Britain -- Google searching only pulls up Harry Potter cooking websites, and our Expert British Person, Cam, had never heard of it. But treacle toffee is an actual British food! Otherwise known as bonfire toffee, it's commonly eaten on Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night.

[Jenne's note: Also, there's no way that fudge, even ruined by Hagrid's cooking skills, could cement anyone's jaws together, so maybe this is just a editing mistake? No matter, treacle fudge sounds tasty! And molasses fudge does seem to be a thing in the US, though I've never encountered it myself. Maybe it's a Southern thing?]

Hogwarts' Breakfast

Author: Rowling, J.K.
Book: Harry Potter series
Difficulty rating: 4, mainly because the timing is difficult, cooking so many things at once
Deliciousness rating: 8

The four long house tables were laden with tureens of porridge, plates of kippers, mountains of toast and dishes of eggs and bacon (Rowling UK 68, US 86).

Breakfast is a pretty important meal, generally speaking, and at Hogwarts, it's filled with an extra sense of anticipation. At the table, students are often discussing an event that they're excited or nervous about -- exams, Quidditch matches, the latest attack by the Heir of Slytherin.... Poor Harry, he's always finding himself unable to eat, for one reason or another.

The outfit of the day.

British Snacks

A 36 Eggs field trip! Jenne and I visited Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe, a British goods market in San Diego. It's a tiny store, but packed with all kinds of curious food and drink. 

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).

The Harry Potter Food & Drink Concordance

If the Harry Potter Food & Drink Index didn't have enough detail, here is our Harry Potter Food & Drink Concordance!

This concordance lists food and drink items in chronological order and includes details such as:

• Quotes (U.S. and U.K. versions)
• Page numbers (U.S. and U.K. versions)
• Cook/preparer/provider of the food or beverage
• Consumer of the food or beverage

I like to think that it's a source worthy of Hermione.

The Harry Potter Food & Drink Index

No idea what to make for an authentic Harry Potter feast? Never fear, the Harry Potter Food & Drink Index is here! At last, a resource that lists all of the eatables and drinkables that appear in one of our most beloved series. My God, they drink SO MUCH TEA.

Here is a list of Top 10 food and drink items that appear most frequently in the Harry Potter series:

Item: # of Appearances

1. tea: 38
2. toast: 22
3. Butterbeer: 21
4. bacon: 16
4. pumpkin juice: 16
6. wine: 13
7. Chocolate Frog: 10
7. porridge: 10
7. sausage: 10
10. bread: 9
10. cake: 9
10. chocolate: 9
10. egg: 9
10: sweet: 9

Happy Harry Potter Month!

We'll be celebrating the Chosen One's birthday by recreating Harry Potter dishes all month! Here's our cooking schedule (although it might take us a while to post everything):

Friday, July 3: Knickerbocker glory
Sunday, July 12: Full English breakfast, Hogwarts-style
Friday, July 17: Treacle toffee with tea
Saturday, July 25: Butterbeer experiment, chicken and ham pie, wine
Friday, July 31: Snitch birthday cake