The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz [69]
“Pudding” is the English word for dessert, and the Pudding King was George I. (“Georgey-Porgey pudding and pie” refers to him.) He insisted he be served Christmas pudding although Oliver Cromwell had banned it because one, it was too sinfully rich (true, especially if you're trying to lose weight) and two, it echoed pagan Celtic customs (also true, the flaming pudding represented the fires the druids and Celts lit at the winter solstice to strengthen the sun).
Here are some of the quaintly named sweets they ate:
Frumenty, a pudding of wheat kernels cooked in milk and sweetened (it was served at King Henry IV's wedding feast — not the Henry with the six wives; that's Henry VIII).
Flummery, an oatmeal dish that evolved into a blancmange-type of jelly made with cream or ground almonds.
Junket, a sweetened curd cheese.
None of these dishes appear in the Harry Potter books; it's just an interesting bit of info.
Desserts and Snacks at School cont'd
Of course, the British have also been eating apple pies and custards for eons. So it's no surprise that the desserts at Hogwarts follow the fine English tradition of being sweet, yummy, and unwholesome. The lucky students get fancy desserts on golden platters with each meal. These recipes are fun to make, even more fun to eat, and are okay to have as long as you save them for special occasions.
Lemon Drops
With Harry, it's often a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but when another student is attacked and Harry is yet again found at the scene of the crime, Professor McGonagall decides enough is enough: this is something for Pro-fessor Dumbledore to handle. The password to his quarters is “lemon drop”; no surprise there, as he confessed to Professor McGonagall that he was fond of this Muggle sweet (see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 11).
Lemon drops, as you might expect, are lemon-flavored candies. They are basically the same as acid drops, a more sour candy, just prepared with lemon extract instead of citric acid. In England there's a popular sweet called a sherbet lemon, which is a lemon-flavored sucking candy with sherbet powder in the center, but specialized equipment is needed to produce it.
¼ cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. Combine the water, sugar, corn syrup, and cream of tartar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to bubble. Wash down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in hot water if sugar crystals have formed on the sides. Clip a candy thermometer to the pan and continue cooking over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture reaches 300°F.
Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the lemon extract. When the bubbling has subsided, use an oiled teaspoon to drop teaspoonfuls of the sugar syrup onto the prepared sheets.
To store the candies, wrap them in sheets of parchment paper, making sure the candies don't touch, as they will stick to each other.
Makes about 40 candies
Peppermint Humbugs
Harry doesn't understand why peppermint humbugs are served along with the roasts and chops and potatoes at his first Hogwarts feast. But it makes sense if you think about it. Maybe the candies were supposed to be like after-dinner mints to freshen your breath (see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 7).
Scrooge's famous “Bah, humbug!” exclamation and peppermint humbugs are unrelated, though some people in England give out humbugs on Christmas as a joke. The only other thing you need to know about a humbug is that it's a type of pulled candy, literally pulled, as you will see in the instructions. Traditional humbugs are striped white and black, but it's for home cooks to tint the candy one color. If you make the candy with