this week, snacking on Milk Duds and Raisinets. Line your cloak with a
proper wizard's feast of sugar munchies. Start with every student's
favorite, Cockroach Clusters.
Our house elf, Floozy, has been working away all weekend to formulate
the perfect Cockroach Cluster recipe, using only the finest Pecanese
cockroaches. With Floozy's polished recipe, the process is easy —
almost like making popcorn balls.
For a final touch, let a
batch of greedy insects loose on your tray of hand-rolled popcorn balls
and they'll crawl right into place and get stuck — like magic. The
hardest part is de-winging the little buggers while they're still
wiggling, but you'll get the hang of it.
When Floozy threatened
to rest her sticky fingers, we made her stay up an extra two hours to
design candy tags for your homemade treats. That'll teach her. Click here to download a print-ready pdf of uniquely-appetizing Cockroach Cluster tags.
Spread the news around Hogsmeade and the floo network, I'll be posting magical recipes all this week.
Update:
About Floozy's sticky, sticky state. No worries. We had her wash up for the next recipe & gave her a clean, new apron to wear.
Oh shoot! Oops — no wonder I haven't seen her all morning.
Cockroach Clusters
Glazed Pecans
1 lb pecan halves
1/2 C light corn syrup
1 T butter
kosher or sea salt to taste
Directions:
Preheat oven to 200º. Coat baking sheet
with butter-flavored cooking spray. Spread pecan halves in single layer on
baking sheet. Toast in 200º oven for approx. 5 min. Remove pecans from oven and pour in mixing bowl. Set aside. Increase oven
temperature to 300º. Re-coat baking sheet with cooking spray.
Melt butter in
microwave. Add corn syrup &
butter to pecan halves. Stir until pecans are evenly coated. With
slotted spoon, remove pecan halves from bowl and place in single layer
on baking sheet. Bake for approx. 15 minutes or until pecan glaze is
brown and bubbly. Remove pecans and lightly
sprinkle with salt. Allow to cool. Pecans should be prepared in advance
of
popcorn balls.
18-20 C of popped popcorn
2 T butter
2 C sugar
1/2 tsp kosher or sea salt
1/2 C light corn syrup
1 1/3 cups water
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
Directions:
Pop
popcorn in air popper — or use plain microwave popcorn. Set aside. In
medium sauce pan, combine butter, sugar, salt, corn syrup, water and
vinegar. (The vinegar helps the sugar to reach a smooth consistency.)
Cook on high until sugar mixture reaches hard-ball stage (approximately
255-265º). Remove saucepan from heat, then stir in vanilla and almond
extract.
Quickly
coat large mixing bowl and mixing spoon with butter-flavored cooking
spray. Pour 18-20 cups of popped popcorn into the greased bowl.
Slowly pour
sugar mixture onto popcorn, tossing as you go. Wait till mixture is
cool enough to handle, but still very warm, then lightly form coated
popcorn into 3" balls and place on wax paper. Before popcorn balls
cool, decorate with glazed pecans. It helps to have a second person to
help add pecans while the popcorn mixture is still warm.
Holy cricket, these are tasty!
• Butterbeer recipe here.
How creative with just a touch of “shiver” with the name!
Cheers,
Bunny!
Those sort of almost turn my stomach. I’ll have to get the girls making these right away!
Just the idea, Jona. Glad to hear it.
Oh you are fabulous with your creativity!!! They name sounds yucky, but oh boy do they look delish!
Denise
haha! this post is great! I’ll be puting my house elf to work making some of these for sure. sorry you lost your house elf with the apron gift!
🙂 Missy
You are so creative! Looks like Floozy got the recipe just right!
Heather, You are completely nuts!!! I love it!
What a fun idea! I always imagined chocolate turtle type candies when I read Harry Potter.
this is just too funny!!
you’re silly and creative.
What a great idea!! My boys, and my 8 year old daughter, would LOVE these!
Could Heather Bailey get better?! She loves HP and creates crafts to make HP movie premier week extra special. Amazing! Thank you!
HB + HP…love it!
thanks for the recipe…gluten free, too!
thanks from the bottom of my heart!
xo
Absolutely adorable! I’ll never look at pecans the same way again 😉
It’s a great idea with a Harry Potter week!!
I will have to show this to my daughter. She has been such a great fan of Harry Potter – and still is at age 17. 🙂 I just love how his wonderful world keep mesmerising children and grownups all over the world.
That is brilliant! Your creative juices are WEIRD Heather – love it!!!
I just got back from the movie and had to chime in – no spoilers.
The best of the series and one of the best films ever. Every character was well acted. Emma Watson seems to have reined-in her overacting. She stole the show. Dumbledore was accessible and imposing at the same time. Malfoy, Snape and especially Slughorn were duly conflicted. The pacing drew me in and kept me focused while both quiet and noisy scenes took place.
Bravo! I loved it.
Isaac
Of course my printer would be broken when something this cute comes along! I’ll still be making the treats though. We are quite the Harry Potter fans around here. Two of my sons look just like him and one of them had to convince a bunch of 7 year olds that he was TRULY not Daniel Radcliff, it was so funny I couldn’t even help him.
Thanks for sharing your creativity with us, I love this website!
A-mazing! My favorite Harry Potter movie so far — BY FAR.
Starts with a bang. Filled with great humor & effects. You’ll leave with an improved sympathy for Draco’s burden.
Super late now. Off to dream of creepy infiri, I’m sure of it.
Great snacks! I’ll bring some chocolate as well, in case of Dementors!!
OOOHHH I love it! You also love Harry Potter…that´s super!
No wonder you haven´t seen Floozy….new apron…now you have to get another elf for the other recipes! :))
I love this post. Thanks!
Hi Heather! Just found you through Twitter, and I’m so glad I did. Your site is so fun and refreshing! And the pic of your daughter (I assume?) with the hot pink nails and the precious toothless grin is beyond adorable.
Your creativity is always inspiring. This is such a darling idea! Thanks for sharing!
oh fun! What a great creative mom you are! We went to the Drive-In (in scottsdale) last night and found that they are going to do a midnight showing, wish my kids were old enough for Harry Potter!
Awesome! I can’t wait to see the movie!
and here i am this morning reading Julie & Julia, contemplating fromage whatever when it gets cold this autumn- how cool- cockroach dessert with a Julia Child recipe-
lori k
Oh aren’t you just adorably clever!!! I’m still working on reading through the books. Almost finished with #5 but hubby has forbid me to start the Halfblood Prince lest I give something away to him before we see the movie. Dressing up for it would be so FUN!
That sounds really yummy! What a neat idea!
Such a great idea! I can’t wait to see the movie.
Wonderful!
Love these and your butter beer.
We took a big group to the midnight showing and threw our own little HP party complete with cockroach clusters and more. You can see pictures at littleantdesign.blogspot.com
Wow, denise! You’re a girl after my own heart. What a spread.
Fabulously creative projects!
wow
Hi Heather just wanted to say what wonderful cakes and sweets you have come up with, where do you get the time. I have a brother in London who has a small coffee shop and makes his own cup cakes (nothing like yours I may add) but I am sending him the link to your webpage as I am sure he can use some of the ideas.
Also as I am involved in pest control how the hell did you get the idea for the cockroach clusters. I would have never of thought about using a pest for naming a sweet/cake I wouldnt of thought it would do so well.
j’adore !!!… et les étiquettes sont parfaites !… je cherche des freebies sur le Net pour les partager, pour l’instant sur Pinterest en attendant l’ouverture de mon propre site où je proposerai mes créations et celles de blogs que j’aime : le vôtre y sera !… merci pour le partage… amicalement, Is… (si vous voulez voir, vos tags sont ici : http://pinterest.com/lemondedis/halloween-freebies/ – au total, je propose déjà environ 15000 liens vers des téléchargements gratuits…)
Great Recipe! Do you allow pinning your pictures to Pinterest?