Friday, November 13, 2015

A Very Harry X-Mas

Harry Potter Theme Party

Universal is hosting a special Hogwarts Christmas Dinner this year which (we obviously can't attend put) prompted DH to ask for a Harry Potter Party.

*I found a lot of my templates using google, but did not keep track of where and altered most of them. Suffice to say, any unlinked template was on the freewebs.


DH saw marauders map invitations and asked me to make them. I put platform tickets inside
I printed them on this paper and provided templates at the bottom. I put a platform 9 3/4 ticket inside before folding it in thirds and sealing with wax.
Tip: Dip the stamp in olive oil and blot on a paper towel. Let the glue sit for ~20 seconds before stamping. I found my best stamps were when i let the stamp sit til the glue hardened and then removed the metal from the rubbery seal Alternatively you can do the wax thing.

Harry Potter merchandise costs a pretty penny, so I've opted for the DIY on a lot of things. I've made chocolate frogs in the past, but for our party i found the fold your own box pictures. 
(I'm going to be attaching jpg files here and full disclosure- they were free on the interwebs and i don't remember where i got them from.)

This is a photo of my chocolate frogs from last year's halloween party. These are with homemade chocolate, but this year i'll just be melting down soy-free chips and maybe filling with peanutbutter





Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans are always a crowd pleaser, but I wanted the movie box for effect. You can buy them online for ~$10/box before shipping, but i just printed out a template and coated it in packing tape and bought the less cool boxes to fill it with for $5:
pay attention to where the bottom folds. i folded mine wrong the first time and had to refold it

I bought a 24ct of 5oz bottles and modpodged labels on for premade cocktails:
In this photo, the felix felicis and butterbeer are only half filled because i need to buy cream soda and won't be adding lemonade until closer to the party date. The ones that are liquor and soda are being made ahead of time, the one with juice needs to be fresher :)

Recipes are for 8 bottles (40oz total) since we did 3 different cocktails in our 24 bottle pack.

  • Butterbeer: 26oz Butterscotch schnapps, 7oz Rumchata (cinnamon almond cream liquer), 7oz Tuaca(vanilla liquer), 2 drops yellow food color *I originally posted this recipe with cream soda, but it made the rumchata curdle. I opted to just eliminate the cream soda because I'm very happy with the liquer recipe I have, but you can substitute something non-cream based if you'd like to use cream soda.
  • Polyjuice Potion: 20oz St. Germaine (elderflower liquer), 6oz Absolut Wild Tea, 6oz Orient Apple, 8oz Club Soda, 2 drops green food color 1 drop brown food color
  • Felix Felicis: We did a lynchberg lemonade: 16oz Honey Whiskey, 8oz Triple Sec, 16oz lemonade. 1/8 tsp gold disco dust (disco dust is food grade glitter made for cupcakes and makes a very beautiful glittering snowglobe effect in drinks)
Pumpkin Juice: apple juice, pumpkin pie puree, and apricot juice. We just bought the orange naked juice and added pumpkin

We had Wizarding World themed snacks and decorations:

Pumpkin Pasties, Chocolate Frogs, Golden Ferrero Rocher Snitches, Sorting Hat Caramels, Licorice Wands, Cauldron Cake Brownies, Ron Weasley's Reubens, and we also served chicken wings (I originally was going to do all drumsticks so it had the turkey leg motif, but then I decided boneless wings were both yummy and easy and I put them in a big copper chafing dish). We did "exploding chocolate" with Chuao's mini firecracker chocolates (they have cayenne and poprocks.) You can see the drink table in the background with the pumpkin beverage dispenser (of pumpkin juice) and the assorted "potion" bottles

I actually leave the floating candles up year round. I watched the tutorial on Epbot and added extra "wax" drippies, but found it easier to just tie fishing line around the base of the flame and back up to the tip of the flame(so it hangs straight) than to drill or poke holes. Ours flicker and look very realistic. Super pleased with them. We replaced the curtain in the doorway with a "brick" curtain for entering platform 9 3/4

Our mini tree, topped with its very own Hedwig topper

Ornaments were mostly cheap ebay finds: time turners, wand charms, deathly hallows charms, golden snitches, tiny potion bottles, etc.



Look for updates! we'll be having a HP mini tree, floating candles, ferrero rocher snitches, sorting hat caramels, exploding chocolate, treacle fudge and more!

Meatloaf Cupcakes

I've been on hiatus for awhile because...I HAD A BABY!!! And for approximately 10 months I have not felt like cooking much of anything, let alone anything new. I've made some soups, but nothing exciting. Yesterday I made meatloaf cupcakes! Super cute and delicious.



1.5 lbs ground meat (i use turkey)
1 egg
3/4 c diced onion, cooked til translucent
1 c bread crumbs (i just stick the end piece of bread in a blender)
1 1/2 Tbs worchestershire sauce
1 Tbs Dijon or whole grain mustard
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne powder
Salt and Pepper

Mash it all together and spoon it into a muffin tin. Mine made 8 cupcakes. Bake at 350*F for 25 minutes.

When you put the meatloaf in the oven, start your potatoes.
(I used about 4-5 potatoes, enough to cover the bottom of a medium pot, covered with ~1 inch of water and boiled for 20 minutes. Drain the potatoes, add 2 Tbs of butter and ~1/4 c of milk and blend with a hand mixer til smooth. You're going to put it through a piping bag, so you want it smooth)

Pull the meatloaf out of the oven, pipe mashed potato "icing" on top and return to the oven for ~10 minutes. Serve. (We had 2 per person)

Our side dish was pan roasted turnips and carrots, buttered and glazed with honey