"Anything from the trolley, dears?" - —Trolley lady to everybody on the Hogwarts Express

We had the funnest time recently at our Harry Potter Birthday Party for Hubby. We are big fans of the books and movies so it seemed like a great theme. Now I could have really got carried away with costumes, decorations etc but I decided to try and keep it simple.

We concentrated on the food and games side of Harry Potter. We had a potluck style dinner which included Cauliflower Mandrakes, Meatball Bludgers (mostly because I overcooked them and they reminded us of bouncy balls in gravy), savoury Pumpkin Pasties, and Mrs Weasley Rock Cakes. For drinks we of course had to have Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice. I tried my best to make a real version of Butterbeer by using some kind of butterscotch essence or syrup but I searched high and low and couldn't find anything. I even attempted making butterscotch syrup and mixing it with fizz but the butter in it kinda put me off. I did have thoughts of making Butterbeer Aragogs (translation butterscotch icecream spiders) but thought with all the other sweets it was too much. So for less fuss Hubby found Schweppes brown-coloured creaming soda. We took the labels off the bottles and the creamy flavour worked a treat. As for the Pumpkin Juice well I boiled some pumpkin up and strained the water and pumpkin through a sieve and mixed it with apple juice and lemonade.

Now you can't visit Hogwarts without sampling something from the sweets trolley. Even though we didn't ride the Hogwarts Express I did manage to have 'Platform 9 3/4' displayed and sweets typical of the Hogwarts Express food trolley were served. Including Cochroach Clusters, Cauldron Cakes (mini), Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Licorice Wands, and Chocolate Frogs.

The games had us in stitches! We started with sorting everyone into houses and birthday Hubby had to be in Griffyndor. Each guest sat out the front and wore the Sorting Hat on their head while I acted as the hat's voice. I read a little humorous or encouraging line about the guest and told them which house they belonged to. This way I could team up Wizards (guests who read the books or watched the movies) with Muggles (guests who hadn't much of a clue) for a more even competition.

Then we played our 3 games:
1. Buckle Buckle Bean Stalk or find the Snitch,
2. Dumbledore's Army Challenge - give definitions for spells and charms,
3. Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans taste testing face off.

Game 3 was the funniest thing I've witnessed in a while. Jelly Belly make a box of jelly beans called Beanboozled that are just like Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. For example two jelly beans looked identical but one was juicy pear and the other booger flavoured. No one knew until they tasted them. I can't tell you how funny it was watching everyone's reactions. Like the sigh of relief when it was plum or the screwed up facials from tasting black pepper. Sometimes both contestants would get a yucky flavour and that made us laugh all the more.

It was a great night and I'd like to have another theme party again. I think the secret to my success was to keep it fairly simple so I could enjoy the night also. Instead of making the preparations so grand that I was too tired of a host to enjoy it.

I will put up some recipes, games, websites and books references to check out if you are ever feeling like throwing a similar Harry Potter theme night. Remember the sky is the limit especially if you have a Nimbus 2000 or a Firebolt.