The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz [70]
1/3 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon peppermint extract
Few drops green food coloring or other desired color
Spray an 8-inch pan with cooking spray and set aside. In a medium saucepan, combine the water, sugar, and cream of tartar and cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to boil. If sugar crystals form on the sides of the pan, wash down the sides with a pastry brush dipped in hot water.
Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the temperature reaches 260°F. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the peppermint extract and food coloring and mix well.
Pour the syrup into the prepared pan. Let the syrup cool for a few minutes. Put on a pair of clean heavy rubber gloves and spray the gloves with cooking spray. Rub your hands together to evenly distribute the oil. If you can tolerate the heat, you can skip the gloves and just oil your hands.
Pick up the hot candy and begin pulling it, twisting along the rope as you pull. This will be difficult at first, as the candy will be a mushy glob and will seem to just gloop and droop. Gradually it will stiffen and be easier to pull. Fold the rope in half and then half again and twist and pull again. Repeat and repeat and repeat. As you pull and twist, the candy will begin to look more opaque and will take on a pearlescent sheen, very pretty to behold. When the candy is too stiff to pull, snip the rope at ¾-inch intervals onto a sheet of parchment paper. The candies will look like teeny-weeny pillows. Do not let the humbugs touch each other; instead wrap each piece individually in parchment paper or plastic wrap to prevent sticking. Store in an airtight container. The humbugs will begin to recrystallize after two or three days.
Makes about 20 ¾-inch pieces
Eat these candies with caution. They can really cement your teeth together!
Classic and Unique Ice Cream Flavors
The dessert course at Harry's first Hogwarts feast is a kid's fantasy (or an adult's, if the adult has a sweet tooth). Pies, cakes, tarts — and ice cream in every imaginable flavor — it doesn't get better than that. A separate cookbook would be needed to cover that many ice cream flavors, so this book includes just a small sample of unique or popular British flavors (see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 7).
The Europeans used vanilla to flavor chocolate and tobacco at first, but as everyone knows, it's used today to flavor lots of other things. The most basic ice cream is vanilla, and it can be used as a base for other flavors. See the note for great variations, or use your imagination and come up with your own flavors.
Classic Vanilla Ice Cream
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 cup granulated sugar extrac
5 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extrac
Combine the cream, milk, and sugar in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until hot but not bubbling. Temper the egg yolks by slowly pouring 1 cup of the hot mixture into the egg yolks while whisking constantly. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the pot while stirring and cook until slightly thickened and steaming, but not bubbling. Remove from the heat.
Pour the mixture through a sieve and stir in the vanilla extract. Cover the surface directly with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming, and cool to room temperature. Chill until very cold, about 6 hours or overnight. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Makes about 5 cups
The fun thing about this basic recipe is that you can add to it whatever you want. Two minutes before it finishes churning, throw in 1 cup of chocolate chips, chopped toffee bits, chopped milk chocolate, chopped toasted nuts, a combination of nuts and chocolate, and so on. You can