The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory--More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike (Unofficial Cookbook)

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I will first make the same complaint everyone else is making: there's no pictures. Not one. There's 150 recipes of delicious sounding things, and not a picture among them. It was pretty disappointing.

While the blurbs paraphrasing episodes from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series have generally been entertaining enough (although also often much too repetitive in scope and feel, and to such an extent that I actually ended up skimming quite a large chunk of the second part of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook as far too many of the presented examples of Harry and his friends enjoying different types of foods actually just ended up feeling as though one was reading the same types of scenarios over and over again), I cannot really say that I have at ALL appreciated the manner in which author Dinah Bucholz has approached her 150 odd recipes. For since all of the recipes featured in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook are of course and naturally United Kingdom based and that a goodly number of them also do appear as being potentially rather difficult and complicated to make, with intricate instructions as well as sometimes necessitating ingredients with which many American and/or Canadian cooks might be not that familiar, I for one would have assumed that Dinah Bucholz to also the include at least a SOME pictures, some accompanying photos of what the end products would and should look like (and that there are NO accompanying visuals whatsoever featured and presented in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, this really does make me quite massively and personally livid). I did not like seeing ingredients such as Jell-O listed when the recipe includes directions for homemade custard. Chapter Six: Breakfast Before Class includes some of Harry's favorite breakfasts like fried sausage patties, porridge with cream and treacle, the classic English fry up, traditional English marmalade, lots of fried foods and the odd one out-cinnamon pull-apart breakfast rolls. That last one sounds good and is topped with cream cheese icing. This section is very classically British and what I would expect to be served at Hogwarts. Al principio de cada capítulo se introduce un poco la temática de las recetas que se van a ver en dicho capítulo, por supuesto, siempre a través de referencias a los libros de Harry Potter. It starts with a nice introduction and has some helpful hints. I did like the way it was divided, which was by location. That way you could look specifically for food from Hogwarts or at the Weasleys'. The steps are numbered, and the recipes are peppered with hints and fun historical facts, as well as guides for making substitutions, which I appreciated. I also liked that each recipe came with a paragraph explaining which book and chapter the recipe was from, along with some context.Chapter Nine: Holiday Fare has everything from English muffins to homemade marshmallows and Christmas pudding for kids and eggnog for kids (alcohol free). I'm not sure why stewed tripe and onions sounded like a good idea to include. Goulash doesn't sound appealing from the name but looking at the ingredients I can see some kids might try it but probably wouldn't like it.

OK, so I haven't yet tried out any of the recipes, so I won't rate it yet, but just from reading it there are some things I noticed:Chapter Two: Delights Down the Alley contains varied dishes like ice cream, burgers and chocolate pudding. Again all of these seem very American to me and yes I've been to England and lived there with a host family for a few months. The most amusing but necessary recipe is how to make a proper cuppa. They forgot to strain the leaves and pour the tea into cups LOL! I am not sure why, but this Treacle Fudge recipe peeked my interest. I love fudge, the texture, the sweetness - so dreamy. With the addition of molasses, I had to try it. The note in the margin of the book stated that "some speculate that a batch of caramels came out wrong - fudged - but it seems it was invented in the United States." I have never had fudge that wasn't chocolate or peanut butter, so this was a fun new baking adventure. It looked like a lot of steps in the directions, but with my mixer, it was fairly easy.