Butterbeer [Wizarding December]

It's so close to Christmas now, and we're at the end of our Wizarding December ! We would like to wish our readers all the best for Christmas, and we hope you've enjoyed the Harry Potter themed posts. 

To finish, we are going to make Butterbeer, the popular beverage served in Hogsmeade village, and enjoyed by thousands of wizards around the world. The main question is : What does Butterbeer really taste like ? J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, described it as being a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch. From the book, it does seems like Butterbeer has a very low alcoholic content, not enough to affect humans, but enough to get house-elves drunk. 

However, for this Butterbeer, we are actually going to adapt an original recipe from "The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin", an old English cooking book published in 1588, including the first recorded recipe for "Buttered Beer" - a Tudor Era drink. Here is the original recipe as transcribed from the book : 

To make Buttered Beere
Take three pintes of Beere, put fiue yolkes of Egges to it, straine them together, and set it in a pewter pot to the fyre, and put to it halfe a pound of Sugar, one penniworth of Nutmegs beaten, one penniworth of Cloues beaten, and a halfepenniworth of Ginger beaten, and when it is all in, take another pewter pot and brewe them together, and set it to the fire againe, and when it is readie to boyle, take it from the fire, and put a dish of sweet butter into it, and brewe them together out of one pot into an other.

The result of this drink will not taste anything like butterscotch, therefore, probably not anywhere close to the butterbeer that Harry Potter and his friends enjoyed in the books. It actually tastes like a sweet, warm, spiced beer ! We adjusted the spices slightly until it reached our personal liking, and used a bit less cloves and nutmeg than the original recipe asked for ( We used 1/4 teaspoon instead of 1/2 a teaspoon ). About the Ale, we got our hands on a bottle of Old Speckled Hen, and we thought it worked out nicely. You can of course make it work with any other good Ale you can get yours hand on, but the taste may differ slightly.

Find the other Wizarding December recipes here !

---

5 minutes

15-20 minutes

3 pints (475 ml/pint)

Sugar Quills [Wizarding December]

Today we're making Sugar Quills ! First mentioned in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, this popular treat is very appreciated by little wizards because it allow them to secretly enjoy a sweet candy in class, while they pretend to think about what to write next.

For this recipe, we are simply going to make lollipops, and if you wish to give them the shape of a quill, you'll need to invest in a mold. We found ours on Etsy (we'll give the links below) and to be fair, we took one that was way too small for what we wanted to do. Regardless, we still made them, they're simply mini-treats rather than large realistic quill. 

Here is the link to the mold we used in this recipe : our mold, but you may want to consider this one and this one too. We simply did not came across them before we ordered our first one :( 

Unless you order several molds, you will have to do the quills one by one. The ingredients below allowed us to make approximately 8 of our little quills, but we divided the measures by 4 to do it in 4 times. Let us explain : with sugar work, temperature is key, if you don't heat it up enough, you'll end up with some stretchy caramel, too much, and the sugar will crystallize and be unusable. If you do them all at once, your sugar mix will begin to set while waiting for each quill to harden. Which means that you'll have to re-heat the sugar and risk crystallization of the whole thing. We noticed that, with the sugar mix, it was only possible to do 2 quills before the sugar mix begins to crystallize. So we advise you guys to divide the measures by 4, for 2 quills per batch. This method also allows you to get creative with flavouring and colouring by changing it each time.

In this recipe we use powdered glucose, which helps to prevent the crystallization of the sugar syrup ( it still does when overheated but allows us to make 2 quills at a time ). It's not the easiest thing to find in store, so if you're in Ireland, we found ours in Dunnes Stores.  

This is a very generic recipe for lollipops and any other hard candies, so if you don't have a feather mold, don't worry, you can use any mold safe for sugar work you have at home! 

Disclaimer:

The Arrogant Pug is not affiliated, endorsed or sponsored by The Harry Potter franchise. Product names, logos, brands and other trademarks are the property of their respective trademark holders. All the files offered for download is for private use only and cannot be sold.

Find the other Wizarding December recipes here !

---

10 minutes

15-20 minutes + until set

8 lollipops approximately

Bolandi's Exquisite Crystallized Pineapple [Wizarding December]

Continuing our magical Wizarding December series, today we're presenting the most time consuming treat on our list : the Crystallized Pineapple. It first appeared in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Tom Riddle offered his teacher, Professor Slughorn, a box of "Bolandi's Exquisite Crystallized Pineapple" in an attempt to get more information about Horcruxes.

Since it sounded absolutely delicious, we decided to make them ! You might be, rightly so, scared by the amount of sugar used, but it is exactly the same method used to confit fruits. Born out of necessity (to conserve over extra long period of time), this way of enjoying fruits is now used for sweet treats. 

This recipe is a very time consuming one because it is done over a minimum of 5 days. Basically, you'll boil pieces of fruit in a highly concentrated syrup, let it soak over night, and repeat this steps 5 times. Unless you possess a dehydrator, you'll need to let them dry in the oven on a very low heat over several hours. 

We would advise you not to re-use the syrup to make a second batch. That's what we did, and while the first ones (that we ate) kept their vibrant, yellow color, the second batch turned out much much darker. They tasted just as sweet, so if you're not bothered by the colour, go ahead =) A candy thermometer is also essential when it comes to creating the hard candied texture. Again, we didn't have any so our pineapples ended up being more of a confit fruit than properly candied fruit bits. 

To present it we simply placed the pineapple bits in an A6 sized clear plastic bag and taped the Bolandi's logo on the top. The logo available for download below is not scaled ! You will have to print it the size you wish.

Disclaimer:

The Arrogant Pug is not affiliated, endorsed or sponsored by The Harry Potter franchise. Product names, logos, brands and other trademarks are the property of their respective trademark holders. All the files offered for download is for private use only and cannot be sold.

Find the other Wizarding December recipes here !

---

20 minutes

20 minutes per day over 5 days

3 to 4 bags

Chocolate Frog & Peppermint Toad [Wizarding December]

With the recent release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we reemerged ourselves into everything Harry Potter, and while binge watching all the movies decided to showcase a handful of recipes inspired by the delicious treats from that magical universe. We are very excited to post our first recipe of Wizarding December, as mentioned on our Facebook page, exceptionally we'll be posting one recipe every week during December ! 

Today, we'll be doing 2 of probably the most popular delicacies from the Harry Potter universe : the Chocolate Frogs and Peppermint Toads. Unfortunately, because we're muggles, ours will be missing the magic to make them jump ! 

The chocolate frogs will be made with milk chocolate and filled with an indulgent salted caramel. While the peppermint toads will be made with white chocolate and filled with a fresh peppermint cream. 

Chocolate is a tricky thing to work with, because depending on the type of chocolate you'll decide to use, you will need to temper the chocolate. I am not going to write a long description of how to temper, or tell you what type of chocolate to use, but I will recommend you to watch this very handy video from Ann Reardon about the difference between real chocolate and compound chocolate, and the different methods to temper your chocolate. It will also show what happens when you work with tempered chocolate and when you don't. 

If you are a Harry Potter fan, you'll remember the lovely box in which the chocolate frogs are presented in. The amazing blog of Bryton Taylor, Food in Literature - is offering the box template to print. We added some tweaks to it, such as a gold effect on the lettering and some designs on the back of the box. We also created a similar box for the Peppermint toads ! 

Disclaimer:

The Arrogant Pug is not affiliated, endorsed or sponsored by The Harry Potter franchise. Product names, logos, brands and other trademarks are the property of their respective trademark holders. All the files offered for download is for private use only and cannot be sold.

Find the other Wizarding December recipes !

---

1 hour + resting time

20 minutes

12 pieces

Classic Madeleines

Link to printable version

Today we baked another French classic : the Madeleine. This famous delicacy is usually enjoyed for afternoon tea. Madeleines are very small sponge cakes, traditionally flavoured with lemon, and have a distinctive shell-like shape, much easier to do than commonly thought. 

The legend of this cake is traced back to the 18th century. Stanisław Leszczyński, Duke of Lorraine, was having a large dinner party in his Château de Commercy, in 1755. In the kitchen, an argument occurred between the steward and the cook, leading to the latter quitting and taking all the freshly baked deserts with him. The dinner seemed compromised until a young maid, Madeleine Paulmier, offered to cook a cake recipe she inherited from her grandmother. The warm welcome that this uniquely shaped cake received, baked in scallops shells back then, inspired Stanislaw to name the cake after the young heroine who saved his dinner. To this day, Commercy is still regarded as the home of the madeleines. 

Madeleines were also made famous by the French author, Marcel Proust, in his novel "In Search of Lost Time". He uses madeleines to demonstrate the contrast of involuntary memory and voluntary memory (retrieved by putting conscious effort into remembering events, and therefore inevitably partial). Now known as the "episode of the madeleine", the cake, when dipped in a cup of tea, suddenly evokes not only a mere memory, but the full essence and feeling of a childhood event. The "madeleine de Proust" became a popular metaphor commonly used in French to describe something that triggers an involuntary memory. 

But enough with history, to make this delicacy, you will need a madeleine cake mold, now widely found in specialized kitchen equipment stores and online. The cooking time will vary depending on your oven, and since it only needs between 8 and 10 minutes of cooking I would advise you to stay around to check on it regularly. A perfectly baked madeleine should be light golden-brown, with a little bump on the top side, and the distinctive shell-shape on the other side. The recipe is very versatile and you can replace the lemon by vanilla, or add some chocolate chips. We'll be presenting some other variations, including savory ones in the future ;-)

If you have kids around, make this recipe with them ! It doesn't need anything sharp, it's easy as pie, and you will create some true "madeleine de Proust" moments for them.

---

20 minutes + 1h resting time

8-10 minutes + until cold

20 madeleines

Wine poached Pears

Link to printable version

For Halloween, we decided to do wine poached pears ! Ok, we know it isn't a Halloween classic but we thought the deep red colour of the pears looks almost blood-like (and with some whipped cream, we even achieved this brain-like look in our serving glasses). Spooky !

Wine poached pears are a traditional dessert from the Burgundy vineyards in eastern France, more specifically, the Beaujolais province. In French, we would call this dessert "Poires à la Beaujolaise", and we would poach them specifically with Beaujolais wine, however, you may use any wine of your personal preference for this recipe. 

This dessert can come in handy because it has the advantage of being prepared the day before, on top of being super easy. The trick is to get pears that are not ripe. This is important because if your pears are already very ripe, they will get soft and mushy, while you want them to hold their shape and stand up themselves.

We will only do 4 pears here, however, you can probably get up to 6 pears depending on the size of your saucepan. You can also keep the spiced wine, reheat it slowly for poaching a second batch of pears the day after, or simply strain the wine and drink it (heat it up a little bit for extra mulled wine goodness) !

The whipped cream is totally optional here, and for more convenience, you can substitute the handmade cream for canned whipped cream. We would advise you not to choose sweetened whipped cream because the wine sauce is already sweet. 

---

30 minutes

30 - 40 minutes + 24h resting time

4

Pork Roast Orloff

Link to printable version

My Mom used to make this recipe at home, and we would call it "Rôti de porc à la paysanne", or Peasant Pork roast in English. However, after researching about this recipe, it turned out it's actually called a Pork roast Orloff. Regardless of how it's actually called, this is one of the easiest and most delicious way of enjoying a pork loin.

This recipe is a variation of an old classic recipe from the Franco-Russian repertoire, the Veal Orloff. It was created by the French chef Urbain Dubois, who worked for the Russian ambassador in France, Prince Alexeï Fiodorovitch Orlov during the 19th century. Originally, a boneless veal loin would be sliced, and filled with a layer of mushroom and onion mash between slices.

This variation uses pork instead of veal, and is layered with bacon and cheese slices. Sounds good already doesn't it ? 

Most of the time, when we do this recipe here in Ireland, we use Emmental slices because it's a cheese we enjoy and it's easy enough to find in store. Back in France, my Mom used Mimolette cheese, and since we were able to bring some back from our holiday there, we will be using this one. Feel free to swap for any cheese you prefer (Emmental, matured Cheddar, or Gouda will work out nicely), or try to get some Mimolette in specialized shops. 

This recipe is really quite simple. Usually, we would slice the loin multiple times from the top-side, halfway through and stuff the gaps with bacon rasher, slices of cheese and it would go in the oven without tying. The blog of Sandrinita is showing clearly how to do it this way. Here, we'll be "butterflying" the roast in order to have it unfolded and flat, than we'll stuff it, roll it back, and, to finish, we'll be tying it so it keeps a neat shape. So, if you're not fully comfortable with tying or butterflying the loin, you may find these steps a bit daunting, but feel free to check out YouTube for tutorials on how to unfold and tie a pork loin, or simply skip these steps and make the traditional slice. 

It was our very first time butterflying the pork loin, and after cooking, we noticed that part of the mimolette melted out of the roll, so we would advice to slice the cheese thinner so the roll is tighter. We also think that if you're using Emmental cheese, you won't have this problem since this cheese tend to stay in place when melted. Still, the final result was absolutely delicious ! We honey roasted some baby potatoes, carrots, and parsnip to serve on the side. 

---

30 minutes

1h30 minutes + 10 minutes resting

4

Melon jam

Link to printable version

Melon is the perfect summer fruit. Loaded with sweetness and flavour, it's also super refreshing to eat on a hot summer day, and very versatile because it can be delicious in a fruit salad or with a nice prosciutto platter. Today we decided to make cantaloupe melon jam, the fleshiest of all the melons. Spread on a freshly baked bread slice, it's a perfect way to start the day. 

For obvious reasons, melons tend to give a lot of water when heated, and depending on your taste, you might want to add some extra jellifying agent to this recipe, such as agar or extra pectin if you don't want to go for the traditional animal-made gelatin sheets. We don't mind it a bit runny (but not liquid), because on top of being spreadable, it can also easily be used as glazing on tarts & cakes to add a lovely looking shine. 

If it's your first time making jam, make sure to boil your jars & lids and let them dry on a clean cloth before pouring the jam in it : this will ensure no nasty mold will grow and will allow you to keep it for as long as 6 months up to a year. Also, for extra security, fill up your jar to the very top, close the lid very tight, and let them cool down completely upside down. 

Jam is traditionally made "tant-pour-tant", which means as much sugar as fruits (1 kilo of melon = 1 kilo of sugar). Yes.. Yes... That's a lot, but keep in mind that chances are you won't eat the full jar in one day. In this recipe, because we're also adding honey, we've reduced the amount of sugar slightly, but tried to keep a ratio of approximately 60% fruit - 40% sugar. If you're not using honey, we advise you to use the tant-pour-tant method to ensure your jam won't turn into a soup. 

---

20 minutes + 24h resting time

40 minutes

6 jars  (370g/each)

A trip to South of France

We just got back from a wonderful week visiting family and friends in the Eastern Pyrenees region of France (Pyrénées-Orientales in French), also known as Northern Catalonia, since, prior to the 1659 treaty of the Pyrenees, this region was formerly part of the principality of Catalonia. 

To this day, the region remains largely tied to its Catalan roots by culture, language and food such as the roasted pepper pictured above (it even looks like the Catalan flag ! - Recipe below) 

The weather was lovely - clear skies, the sun was shining and we had temperatures above 30°C every day. As well as this, there's a lot of food easily available in this sunny part of France that is difficult to find in Dublin and Ireland in general. 

In this blog post we'll show some pictures of our trip, talk about some of the delicacies we've tried, and provide three recipes for some classic Mediterranean & French amuse-bouches below. Prepare to scroll !

The Catalan region is a beautiful part of France. The Pyrenees Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea surround this area, which allows for both wonderful mountain views and some beautiful beaches. 

On one particular day we visited a small, quaint mountain town called Eus, classified as one of the "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France". It is built on the slope of the Pyrenees and located about 40 kilometers west of Perpignan. It is an extremely picturesque town with small, windy, cobbled streets and the old Church of St Vincent with it's foundations built into the rocks. We decided to take a little hike behind the town and up the mountain to have a picnic. The views were spectacular. Afterwards, we took a stroll around the town, visited some of the artisan shops, and finally relaxed with a couple of beers in the Place de la Réplublique. 

We highly recommend to visit this town if you are ever in the region! 

We know of the town of Eus because it was the village my grandfather lived in after he retired. After he passed away, my mother found a box containing old family recipes while cleaning out his house. It is a gold mine filled with hundreds of handwritten recipes from France and abroad, and being two foodies, she happily allowed us to take it home. We are very excited to try some of them!

One recipe we found in the box, and tried making while there, was for gougéres. They are a cheesy choux pastry, perfect for aperos, as a side dish, or a light snack. The recipe is below.  

The hot and dry climate of the Catalan region is perfect for growing a large variety of cactus. We had the chance to try some freshly picked prickly pears (Figues de Barbarie, en francais), from the Opuntia cactus, pictured above. These colourful fruits had a refreshing, subtle, and sweet taste. But take care when handling, as they may still have some cactus barbs attached!

On the Sunday afternoon, we had some friends invite us over for lunch and to swim in their pool. To start, they served us some saucisson, olives and a slightly spicy cured pork spread - Sobrasada, a specialty of the Balearic Islands. For the main course they cooked an authentic Paella, containing mussels, calamari, prawns, squid, chicken, and beef, all cooked in a rich tomato sauce. It was delicious! 

We were also looking forward to having some tomato salad - Recipe below. It might sound simple, but with seasonal, carefully selected, different tomato varieties, you can take this simple starter to the next level. It's rare, and difficult to find anything else than the classic "water-filled" red tomato in Dublin. 

The ones we tried there were fleshy, tasteful and colorful. Among the large choices offered by local producers, we picked ripe black Krim Tomatoes, known for their rich, sweet flavour, and a pineapple Tomato, a mildly sweet with low acidity, somewhat fruity, with a hint of citrus. 

We hope you've enjoyed reading about our culinary adventure, and we've selected 3 delicious dishes for you to try during the "Apéro" - the traditional dinner opening to share a drink with friends & family while eating light food to get you in the mood for the rest of the supper !