The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz [27]
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush the beaten egg over the buns and sprinkle with the turbinado sugar. Bake the buns for 15 minutes until the tops are golden brown, switching and rotating the pans midway through baking. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 8 buns
These buns do not keep well. They should be eaten within a few hours of baking.
Treacle Fudge
Hagrid's glue-your-teeth-together fudge turns out to be quite useful: after Hagrid's been taken to Azkaban, Harry feeds some to Fang to keep him quiet. Fang can't bark because his fangs are stuck together. Fudge is not foolproof, so it's no surprise Hagrid's didn't come out quite right (see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 15).
Making fudge was the “in” thing to do at women's colleges in the 1880s. Can you imagine if that were the in thing to do at colleges today? Times have certainly changed. We don't know who invented fudge, though some speculate that a batch of caramels came out wrong — it was “fudged” — but it seems it was invented in the United States.
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
½ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons black treacle or dark molasses or blackstrap molasses
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Grease an 8-inch square pan and set aside. Combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, heavy cream, treacle, and cream of tartar in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the butter is melted and the ingredients are combined. Wash down the sides of the pot with a pastry brush dipped in hot water if sugar crystals form on the sides, to prevent recrystallization. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot and continue to cook without stirring until the mixture reaches 240°F on the candy thermometer.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Allow the bubbles to subside and the mixture to cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove the thermometer and beat or stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture loses its gloss and is very thick, 15 to 20 minutes. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. You can use a piece of plastic wrap and the palm of your hand to do this.
Cool completely before cutting into 1-inch squares.
Makes 64 pieces
If the mixture gets too hot, the fudge will seize up into a hard, grainy clump when you try to stir it. If it doesn't get hot enough, the fudge will not thicken and will remain a gloopy mess. You can then try to save it by putting it back in the pot with some water (don't worry; the water will evaporate) and reheating it to the correct temperature.
Dundee Cake (Fruitcake) for Kids
Hagrid is about to offer fruitcake to Harry and Ron, but he is very nervous. He suspects that any moment he will be carted off to Azkaban for a crime he did not commit. When he hears the knock on the door, he is so agitated that he actually drops the cake on the floor (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 14).
Once upon a time, in the faraway city of Dundee in Scotland, a factory produced marmalade. But it did not produce marmalade the whole year. So the rest of the year, the manufacturers came up with the idea to make a fruitcake with orange peel, also adding the almonds brought by the Spanish traders. Thus was born the Dundee cake.
Candied orange peel is next to impossible to find, so this recipe uses marmalade.
If you are an adult and you wish to make traditional Dundee cake, simply replace the apple juice with brandy.
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup finely ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1½ half sticks (12 tablespoons) butter
1½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
¼ teaspoon almond extract
Juice and zest of 1 orange
¼ cup marmalade
¼ cup apple juice
½ cup dark raisins
½ cup