Harry Potter

Nerd alert: This post is about Harry Potter.

If you don't know the terms "horcrux", "the golden snitch", or "Deathly Hallows", then feel free to skip this post. Or read it and judge my family and me for indulging our dorky side.

If you do know all of the above terms, I like you. Holla, fellow nerd!

The Harry Potter obsession started slow, with me reading the first one as an assignment in my college children’s lit class. That grew to me discussing the book with my suitemate and another friend, both of who were fans. That led to me convincing my sister to read it…

Fast forward six years: Harry Potter has become quite the book club discussion in our family. We all read all seven books, and even Dan, who refused to crack a single one, has seen all eight movies with us. That’s over 4,000 pages of reading and 16 hours of movie watching that we dedicated to Hogwarts, people. This total does not even include the two hours we waited in line to see the final movie, thus ending our obsession with the little-wizard-who-could.

As we left the theatre, however, I couldn't help feeling like we needed one last Harry Potter hurrah. So, when I was at the beach last week, I decided to participate in Young House Love’s Pinterest challenge, where people create something based on an inspiration photo found on said website. I thought it would be fun to create a Three Broomsticks’ dessert buffet as the final goodbye to the series we all loved.

First, I scouted out inspiration images on Pinterest, like...

this creamy butterbeer:

via here

this golden snitch idea:

via here

And this peanut butter trifle

(No, the dessert was not in the book, but trifle is very English, so it fit.)

via here
My photos of what I did came out pretty horrible, but I thought I’d share anyway.

First, here I am donning my dad’s Redskin… errr… Griffindor scarf, holding one of the golden snitch chocolates:



I decided that us Muggles needed a buzz, so rather than making the uber-complicated, virgin butterbeer from the inspiration photo, I just combined butterscotch schnapps and cream soda.

I think my sister enjoyed it! And I do love that it looks like Bethany is downing some hardcore drink, like scotch on the rocks, in this picture:


I stuck feathers into Rocher chocolates to make snitches:


I put out Bertie’s Every Flavor Beans that a student gifted to me this year:


And took a funny picture of my mom trying to choke down the soap-flavored one:




Other flavors we tried included cherry, marshmallow, black pepper, chocolate, and sausage, to name a few. My dad even tried an earthworm one.

And lastly, I made this sinful trifle. My pictures may not be as pretty as the Pinterest one, but I think it was a hit with the fam. Click on the link under the inspiration photo if you want to try this crazy rich recipe as it has all the steps. Basically, you mix peanut butter chips into brownie batter and bake. Once the brownie has cooled, you cut it up into one inch cubes. Then, you prepare vanilla pudding and mix in peanut butter and a little bit of vanilla extract. Finally, you unwrap mini Reese cups. The last step is the most fun: you layer the brownie, then the pudding, then a little bit of Reese cups until your trifle glass is full. Holy calories, Batman!





The day after I made this dessert, I saw my sister and her boyfriend with my camera and his computer open to Photoshop. They kept chortling sneakily before finally calling me over. What had they been up to? They took photos of me off the camera and Photoshopped me right into the world of wizardry!

They took one of the pictures of me wearing the famous scarf:

and inserted me into a Quidditch crowd!

They took this photo of me from our Italy trip last year:


And had me keeping Ron dry, with my wand at the ready!

Anyone else in on the HP obsession? It's okay to admit it. This is a "nerd safe" zone.