Wizarding World of Harry Potter Butterbeer

Along with candy and chocolate, Harry Potter is another one of my great loves. Shortly before the fourth book was released in the summer of 2000, I was introduced to the series, and have been a rabid an avid fan ever since. When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in 2007, I was feeling bittersweet, but I remember thinking, at least I have the movies to look forward to.

With the recent release of the last movie, I thought it'd be a good time to post a little non-review of the Butterbeer served at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios Florida. My husband and I went there in June on vacation, and it was like a dream. Even though my husband is not really a Potter enthusiast, he had a blast there as well.


After riding The Forbidden Journey (which was incredible) and the Dragon Challenge, we headed to the Hog's Head Pub to beat the heat. There's only one way to cool off in Hogsmeade, and that's with an ice cold Butterbeer. Only available in the Harry Potter section of the park, Butterbeer comes on ice or frozen, and both varieties are about $3 US.

The regular, on ice variety smelled of cream and mild soda. The bartender first dispensed the amber-colored soda, then topped it with a fascinating bit of magic in the form of a thick white cream. The soda tasted like mild cream soda with hints of butter and vanilla, but the topping was incredible. It was thick and frothy and reminded me of marshmallow fluff, only smoother. It had a lovely vanilla flavor with a hint of saltiness, and seemed to expand and bubble with the carbonated soda, so that there was soda and cream in every single sip.


Here's that magical topping in action!
Later that evening, we returned to the Harry Potter area to ride the Forbidden Journey again, and top off the night with a frozen Butterbeer and a Pumpkin Fizz. Again, the bartender first dispensed the Butterbeer, this time a frozen slurry, and then the magical topping. Because the topping comes out of the tap at around room temperature, it melted some of the frozen Butterbeer, dripping down the inside of the cup.

The frozen Butterbeer was much denser and thicker than the regular variety. If it was carbonated, I didn't notice, and the buttery flavor was much richer. While I really enjoyed it, neither my husband nor I could quite finish it, as it was a much more filling beverage.


I should also mention the Pumpkin Fizz; when I ordered Pumpkin Juice, the bartender recommended a Pumpkin Fizz instead - half juice and half club soda. Apparently, the Pumpkin Juice on its own is nearly unbearably sweet, and the soda cuts down on the sweetness. The Pumpkin Fizz was still sweet, but it was tasty and refreshing. The pumpkin pie spices were great: cinnamon and nutmeg were easily detected. It was much easier to finish than the frozen Butterbeer!

I expected Butterbeer to be more like a thick butterscotch than a fancy cream soda, but I wasn't disappointed at all. Harry and his friends drink it warm in the books, but that's not practical in the Florida heat. The Harry Potter-themed beverages were highly enjoyable and not terrible overpriced (for a theme park).

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is an absolute delight for fans of the books and movies, but anyone would have fun there. It's absolutely worth the admission price! If you made it this far, thanks for putting up with my fangirlish raving. Are any of you Harry Potter fans? The last movie was amazing, wasn't it?

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

Who loves pumpkin? Y'all do!

How do I know this? Because every other blog post and tweet is about some pumpkin dessert, pumpkin savory side, pumpkin latte, or pumpkin beer. I guess it is Autumn, the most pumpkin-iest time of the year, but I'll confess that I'm not as passionate about pumpkin as y'all are. I don't hate it, and I'll eat an entire pumpkin pie gladly, but pumpkin desserts in particular are not my first choice.

So why am I making a pumpkin struesel cake? Because I'm eating down my pantry, and there was a can of pumpkin puree in there from, I guess, last year when Autumnal pressures made me buy it, and, then, I was not compelled to use it. Plus, I know y'all love pumpkin, and not every post has to be about what I like. And, it's about time I posted a vegan dessert recipe. And, I wanted to use Sweetzels Spiced Wafers in a recipe.
Sweetzels is a Philadelphia food institution that you'd never know about unless you live in the area. These crisp and thick spiced cookies baked in Skippack, PA, are only rolled out seasonally in surrounding area stores, but recently have made a push into the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard. They're really no different than other mass produced gingersnaps, save for a few extra spices in the mix, but they're locally iconic, and I'm embracing the local foodways.
Pumpkin Streusel Cake
adapted from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
makes 16 servings

This vegan streusel cake bakes up very moist. Skip the streusel top, if you'd like something more pumpkin bread-like. And, make a standard spiced struesel topping, if you don't have gingersnaps.

Streusel

7 gingersnaps, broken into pieces
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

• Pulse gingersnaps in a food processor until a flour-like consistency.
  
• Mix pulsed gingersnaps and brown sugar together in a bowl. Sprinkle with canola oil, and mix until combined. Add pecans and mix

Cake

1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
3/4 cup soy milk
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons light molasses (I used sorghum)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

• Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  
• In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, soy, milk, oil, sugar, molasses and vanilla.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking poser, salt, and spices.
• Adding half of the flour mixture at a time to the pumpkin mixture, gently mix the ingredients by hand, avoiding over mixing.
• Pour batter into the prepared baking pan. Top evenly with the streusel mixture.
• Bake for 45-50 minutes until done, or a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Tirol Pumpkin Tart

The biggest reason my husband and I went to Japan was to visit with one of my best friends. She lives in Kyoto, but she was an exchange student at my university a few years ago, and was a bridesmaid in my wedding last year. Sometimes we send each other candy or clothes from our respective countries, so I get a lot of candy recommendations from her, and one of her favorite things is Tirol chocolate!

Tirol chocolates are small, cheap, and cute. Some kinds are better than others, but like many other Japanese candies, there are always new, limited edition kinds to try. I bought this Pumpkin Tart flavor at a Lawson convenience store for about 40 yen, I think, and it's a "Premium" Tirol chocolate. I think that just means it's bigger than the normal size. Also, the Jack-o-Lantern on the wrapper suggests that this flavor is a limited edition for Halloween.


Oddly enough, my friend who loves Tirol chocolate hates pumpkin, so she passed on this one. To me, the pumpkin flavored white chocolate wasn't very strong or spicy. It just had a hint of pumpkin and cinnamon. I really like pumpkin treats to taste like pumpkin pie with whipped cream, but that's probably a little too rich for Tirol.

Inside the chocolate, there was a little cookie. I'm guessing that was the "tart" part. It was crunchy and more savory than sweet, and it added a great texture. Tirol chocolates often have great textures; many are made with mochi (pounded rice) centers. In fact, check out Orchid64's Japanese Snack Reviews for a great review of another Tirol chocolate (Kinako Mochi) that was available at the same time as this one. She also has a review of this one!

I liked the Pumpkin Tart, but do wish the chocolate had been a bit richer and spicier. Of course, pumpkin pie as I know it isn't really a Japanese taste, so I'll take this chocolate as it is.

B

Tirol Chocolate website (Japanese)

Gourdgeous

I have a dream...to one day grow heirloom and giant pumpkins as a hobby. But seeing as how I have a tee-tiny patch of soil in the shade, that dream is going to have to wait.

In the meantime, I get cheap thrills by ogling all the heirloom orbs at Longwood Garden's annual pumpkin and gourd display. You can't beat the classic orange pumpkin, but my favorites are the warty gourds and the gray gourds.This warty, milky orange French heirloom, 'Galeux d'Eysines', is my all time favorite. I once had seeds of this variety in hopes of a large patch of sunny soil falling from the sky, but who knows where those seeds are now...or that patch of soil.'Marina di Chioggia' makes me doubly happy with gray bumps abound. Don't they look like charred remains pulled from a house fire?I would have pocketed a couple of these fist-sized gray and orange 'Futtsu Early Black' squash, if I weren't such an upstanding citizen. I swear, I never even touched the display!
The display at Longwood has been up since September and runs through November 23, but towards the end things can get a little rotty and you just might miss some of these stunners, so go now.

Meiji Chocolife

Who doesn't love a bit of Engrish on their chocolate? Meiji is probably my favorite chocolate company, and although I'm not sure what constitutes a Chocolife, I am tempted to live it. The two flavors I tried were pumpkin with milk and strawberry.


The packaging and the chocolate itself are both sophisticated and lovely. Although I can't really say it tasted like pumpkin, it did taste delicious. My husband (who ate this with me) said it reminded him of cookie dough, and it had a pleasant grittiness that seems to be a recurring theme in the chocolates I've reviewed today.


I also tried strawberry Chocolife, and I feel I must again mention grittiness - I'm really starting to appreciate that quality in a chocolate. Thankfully, it came from strawberry pulp and not seeds. This one is intensely fruity and definitively strawberry (unlike the ambiguously pumpkin chocolate above).

Even though the pieces were very small and thin, I think the portion size was just right, as they were easy to savor. I can't pick a favorite between the two flavors, so I'll just have to wait until I try the matcha flavor; I'm sure matcha will be my favorite.

Pumpkin: A-
Strawberry: A

Meiji Website (Japanese)

I Love You, Pumpkin

I love pumpkin browsing in the fall - going to markets to ogle, point, and ooh and ahh over the many varieties of pumpkins. There are teeny-tiny pumpkins, red pumpkins, white pumpkins, warty pumpkins, speckled pumpkins, round pumpkins, long pumpkins, crook-necked pumpkins…well, some of these are technically gourds and squash, but all are in the cucurbit family.

I have a dream…of one day growing a record-breaking pumpkin. Ok, it doesn’t have to win a prize at the state fair, but nursing a pumpkin to obesity is on my to-do list. I currently don’t have the room or sunlight where I live to realize this dream. One day.

At Halloween, I can’t bring myself to carve my pumpkins; they’ll collapse within days to a mushy, stinky pile. I prefer to keep my orange orbs around as long as possible. Others ditch the pumpkin as soon as the holiday is over. One year I drove around on trash day and collected a trunk load of uncarved pumpkins that were kicked to the curb. That was a good year.

So, why am I writing about my love of pumpkins now? I just sacrificed the sugar pumpkin that has cheerily been sitting on my kitchen table since October to make pumpkin soup. The soup was good, but I appreciate the beauty of the pumpkin much more than its flavor. It’s going to be many months before I get to fawn over pumpkins again. Sigh.