Chocolate Éclairs

I love chocolate éclairs, but I had never had homemade ones until I made them today. They are really good! The only issue I had with them is the glaze. The recipe wanted me to melt the chocolate for 2 minutes, stirring it every 30 seconds, but that burnt the chocolate, so I had to start over. I melted the chocolate for a minute and a half instead, and it worked much better. I thought the éclairs could use some color, so I added the rainbow sprinkles. These éclairs are so tasty, and I can't wait to share them with my family and neighbors!

Lemon Meringue Pie

Since I'm home for Christmas break from college, I decided to make some new Harry Potter recipes. The first one I tried was lemon meringue pie. I've wanted to make lemon meringue pie since I saw Ina Garten make one on Food Network. It looked so delicious! However, I had never made pie before, so I was nervous and put off making it. I finally decided to make one. It was really hard, but it turned out all right. The meringue wasn't whipped enough, so the top of the pie doesn't have pretty peaks, but it still tastes really good. I learned that the pie needs to be chilled before eating it, even though the cookbook says it can also be eaten at room temperature. After the pie is chilled, it keeps its shape a lot better when it's cut.

Kreacher's Beef Stew with Herb Dumplings

This stew took over four hours to make, but it tasted really good!  This stew is wonderful comfort food!  It may not look that great in this picture, but it was really good!  I'm sure if Kreacher made it, it would be even better!

Double Chocolate Ice Cream

This ice cream was tasty, but it seemed a lot like the chocolate chunk ice cream that I already made...but without the chunks.  It was basically just chocolate ice cream.  It was good, but there wasn't anything really that special about it.

Harry's First Birthday Cake: Chocolate Layer Cake

In honor of Harry Potter's birthday yesterday, my friend Hilary and I had a Harry Potter birthday party.  For the party, I made this cake (It's the one Hagrid gave Harry when Hagrid told Harry about Hogwarts and being a wizard).  This cake was amazing!  It was so fudgey and rich and just plain delicious!  My family and Hilary loved it!

Cheesy, Chivy Eggs from the Great Hall

I made these eggs for lunch today, and they were really, really good!  My family and I usually put ketchup on our eggs, but these eggs have so much flavor on their own that they don't even need ketchup.  Thy were so good, but I wish there had been more. We used six eggs, like the recipe said, but we all only got a small portion.

Hagrid's Rock Cakes

      I was really curious about what rock cakes would taste like.  When I read the Harry Potter books, Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't really seem to enjoy rock cakes, since they not only look like rocks, but they are also as hard as rocks, but the recipes in the Harry Potter cookbook tend to be really good, so I decided to try them anyways.
     These aren't true Hagrid Rock Cakes, since they only look like rocks; they are pretty soft on the inside, and they are really good!  The cinnamon and raisins in these rock cakes combine to make a delicious flavor.  To make a Hagrid Rock Cake, I would have had to bake these longer than the recipe says and let them sit out for a week, but I didn't want to lose a tooth!

Paddington Burgers

I did not get a picture of these because I was a little behind schedule with making these for our dinner with the LDS missionaries last night.  They were pretty challenging to make because I couldn't tell if they were done or not, and it just wasn't working out.  My mom had to do the actual cooking part after I mixed all the ingredients and made the patties.  These burgers ended up being really tasty!  The missionaries said these were the best burgers they had had in a while; they called them gourmet burgers.

Hagrid's Custard Sponge Sandwich (Cake)

     My family and I had the LDS missionaries over for dinner yesterday, and I made this cake for dessert.  They loved it, and so did we!  One of the missionaries served part of his mission in England but has to finish his mission in the U.S., and he was sooo excited to have custard cake.
     I was a little wary about how this cake would taste because the custard spread looked super nasty when I was making it, but it tasted really good as a cake filling, and I was really happy with how the cake turned out.  I would be really happy if I received this cake for my birthday like Harry.  I also made some whipped cream to put on top of the cake, but that's not in the picture.

Chocolate and Raspberry Ice Cream with Chopped Nuts from Diagon Alley

This ice cream was so rich and creamy!  I've never had raspberry ice cream before, and this ice cream was so good!  I used pralines instead of nuts because I didn't have any almonds at my house, but they pralines tasted really good with the ice cream too.

Herby Roast Chicken with Onion-Garlic Mashed Potatoes

This meal was sooo good! The mashed potatoes were so creamy, and they had so much flavor!  The chicken was really good and flavorful too!

Triple Power Icy Lemon Pops

I made these lemon pops today.  They tasted like really strong frozen lemonade.  I thought they were too lemony, and I didn't finish mine.  I've definitely made better recipes than this in the cookbook.

And The Winner Is...

The winner of the What Should I Make Next? poll is Chocolate and Raspberry Ice Cream Cones with Chopped Nuts! I started making the ice cream today, but since I only have one ice cream maker, I can only make one flavor a day.  I made the chocolate today, and I think it went okay, but I haven't tasted it yet; it's still freezing right now.  I'll make another post for it when it's done.

In second place for the poll, there was a three-way tie between Triple Power Icy Lemon Pops, Oversized Blueberry Muffins with Crunchy Tops, and Herby Roast Chicken with Onion-Garlic Mashed Potatoes, so I decided to make them all!  I've already made the muffins and I started the lemon pops today, but they, too, are still freezing.  Tomorrow, I'm going to make the chicken and mashed potatoes, but I'm a little worried about it because some new cooking techniques I've never tried before are involved in it:/

I've made a new What Should I Make Next? poll, so please vote on it to help me choose and influence what I make next!

Mrs. Weasley's Creamy Onion Soup

This soup was so good! I thought it would taste kind of milky because I had to put a lot of milk in it, but it just tasted thick, creamy, and delicious!  My whole family loved it! The down side to this soup is that it takes a really long time to make.  I started it a 4:30, and I didn't finish until around 6!

Mrs. Weasley's Oversized Blueberry Muffins with Crunchy Tops

I made these muffins for breakfast for my family tomorrow, but I tried one today.  They were absolutely delicious, and for a nice change, they one took a half hour to an hour to make, and they weren't very complicated!

McGonagall's Chewy Ginger Biscuits

These are really good, but the bottoms are very sticky because the cookie dough is coated with sugar before it bakes.  I hope the cookies don't get too stuck together before we can eat them!

Meringues

 

I made these meringue cookies today.  I had never made meringue before, so I had no idea what it was supposed to look like before I added the sugar, so I had to guess.  I hope they turned out all right:/  They were really sweet, and I liked them, but they're not so good that I would drop Neville Longbottom out a window as a baby for one like his uncle did.

Cauldron Cakes a.k.a. Big, Fluffy Pancakes

"Best pancakes I've ever had in my life!"- Seth

The boy I'm babysitting this summer, Seth, and I made these cauldron cakes--pancakes to us muggles--today for lunch.  Usually, I'm not a huge fan of pancakes, but the lemony flavor of these made them taste so much better! They were really good, but we made too many pancakes for just the two of us:/  While making these pancakes, I learned that thickened whole milk looks disgusting, and I stink at flipping pancakes.  Guess that rules out a future career at IHOP for me!

Cinnamon Rolls from the Great Hall

I made these cinnamon rolls yesterday for my mom's birthday.  They were a lot of work, but they were really fun to make, and they tasted delicious! This is one of my favorite recipes I've made.  I've really enjoyed making bread, so if international relations doesn't work for me, I might become a baker instead;)

Kreacher's Hot Rolls

This was a recipe that I really wanted to make, but I was also a little nervous about it because I had never made bread before or separated an egg yolk from an egg white before.  I finally made these rolls, and they turned out great! They were so delicious, but they sad thing was they only last for a few hours.  After that, they become too dense:(

Hagrid's Sugar Biscuits

I made these last week.  They're like sugar cookies but a little less sweet.  They are still really good though.  I didn't make them entirely like Hagrid, since I cooked them longer.  This made them a lot more edible than Hagrid's cooking!

With studying for AP tests and graduation stuff, I'll be really busy.  I'm going to take a break from cooking and continue this experiment after I graduate in May.

Kreacher's French Onion Soup

I made this soup for dinner tonight; it took about an hour and a half, but it was absolutely delicious!  Not only did it taste good, but the house smelled great, too.  My parents and I loved it!