Harry Potter cookbook review: Fun but time-consuming recipes for cakes and cookies

Gemma White picks three dishes from the Afternoon Tea Magic cookbook to bake with her three children

A new cookbook lists recipes inspired by meals and sweet treats featured in the Harry Potter book series. Photo: Amazon

The food in the Harry Potter series is as much a loved part of the wizarding world as the magic of Hogwarts. From the sweets trolley aboard the Hogwarts Express, the treats on offer at Honeyduke’s Sweet Shop, the hearty fare served at the Weasley home and the fantastic feasts that appear on the long tables of the Great Hall, the magical snacks, dishes and treats in the books and films are a delicious addition.

As a long-time Harry Potter fan, and with one of my children recently introduced to and loving the wizarding world, I thought a morning spent cooking up treats from the newly published Afternoon Tea Magic, Official Snacks, Sips and Sweets inspired by the Wizarding World would be fun. And it was. Sort of.

Billed as a “deluxe cookbook” and packed with all the information needed to create a “Harry Potter-inspired afternoon tea”, the book offers fans a range of DIY dishes. In the sweet section, find Dolores Umbridge’s I will make scones recipe, and Molly Weasley’s teatime rhubarb and custard trifles.

The savoury section is home to treats such as Kowalski Bakery’s buttery teatime witch hats with magical herbal broomsticks, and the Deathly Hallows pull-apart teatime bread. In the drinks section, Teddy the Niffler’s milk treat is calorific but delicious, while Trevor’s Toad Pond Punch is perfect for a child’s birthday party.

Fun idea or riddikulus? After a swish and flick through the book, I quickly realised it’s not really for children. Well, little ones anyway; older children will fare better, but will probably still need help. Many dishes have long lists of ingredients with instructions spread across several pages.

With this in mind, I preselected about 10 recipes I thought my children, Indiana, 11, Fox, nine, and Caspian, five, could handle, and that wouldn’t later result in me performing an obliviate spell to purge the experience from my mind.

Imagine my joy, then, when my youngest decided upon the Hungarian Horntail mini teatime cakes, comprising a whopping four-page-long recipe and instructions.

Fox opted for the equally time-consuming Hogwarts Houses four-layer rainbow petits fours, while my eldest went for the one-bite circus animal tea biscuits.

Having baked with the children many times before, I knew from experience that the weighing and measuring part could extend the time spent by hours if not days, so I pre-weighed and measured all the ingredients for my two youngest while letting my eldest do it for his recipe.

'Baking is hard'

The recipe for the Hungarian Horntail mini teatime cakes claimed it would make 12 cupcakes, so how we managed to make an additional eight-inch cake from it, I have no idea. Magic, perhaps? The Geminio doubling charm can be very effective, I hear.

For all three recipes, the pouring into the bowl of flour, sugar, eggs and more was met with glee, as my children love pouring stuff. Pretty soon, though, small arm muscles grew tired of stirring and that’s where I stepped in, in the absence of one of those self-stirring spoons Molly Weasley has.

The Hogwarts Houses four-layer rainbow petits fours recipe required a little (OK, a lot) of substitutions. Out went the strawberry tea bag, Moroccan mint tea bag, lemon-lime tea bag and butterfly pea flower tea in exchange for the artificial flavourings we already had in the baking cupboard. Also out was the blue spirulina powder, replaced by blue food colouring, and the elderberry jam for raspberry.

The one-bite circus animal tea biscuits Indiana chose to make required extra flour to soak up the wet vegetable oil and creme fraiche ingredients, offering him a solid introduction to the mechanics of the rolling pin that caused him to lament: “Baking is hard.”

For the biscuits, we didn’t have the suggested miniature circus animal biscuit cutters, so instead used the cutters we did have, namely circles, stars and flowers. From start to finish, baking the three recipes took about four hours.

Recipes from Privet Drive and the Leaky Cauldron

Each recipe comes with its own introductory spiel about the origin of the dish, including the character it’s associated with and when and where it makes an appearance in the books or films.

Some recipes are instantly recognisable, such as the Leaky Cauldron split-pea teatime soup Harry is offered; and Aunt Petunia’s teatime Windtorte pudding, which Dobby the house elf drops on Mrs Mason’s head during a dinner party at Privet Drive.

Others are inspired by locations, characters or passing mentions. Professor McGonagall’s transfiguration sticky toffee pudding bites feature ice cream cone witches' hats, while only the bravest should attempt the Dementor’s mini chocolate teatime treats.

Some of the recipes don’t have accompanying imagery, rather ironically with Professor Sprout’s bite-size greenhouse mystery cakes, leaving you to figure out what they’re supposed to look like. Others, such as the Divination dream bar tea treats are accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations.

Despite the Harry Potter inspiration, this is a cookbook for grown-ups and older children with a penchant for the kitchen, as young children would need a lot of supervision. Some of the ingredients might not be found in the average home pantry, such as beeswax, fresh lavender buds, bright pink coarse sugar and Hungarian paprika.

Many recipes also require specialist equipment that the baking layperson might not have to hand, including a Madeleine tin, mini heart-shaped waffle iron, canele moulds, wooden mallets and frog and key-shaped plastic moulds. Oh, and a 500g bottle of “very strong waterproof polyurethane adhesive”, which I’m glad to say is not for the cakes, but rather to keep the teapot in Queenie Goldstein’s floating teapot recipe afloat.

While imaginative, the complexity of many of the recipes and the amount of ingredients mean they’re not ones I will rush to do again. Overall, though, the children enjoyed the experience. And their favourite part? “The eating of course,” noted Caspian.