The food in the Harry Potter series is as much a loved part of the wizarding world as the magic of Hogwarts. From the sweets trolley aboard the Hogwarts Express, the treats on offer at Honeyduke’s Sweet Shop, the hearty fare served at the Weasley home and the fantastic feasts that appear on the long tables of the Great Hall, the magical snacks, dishes and treats in the books and films are a delicious addition.
As a long-time Harry Potter fan, and with one of my children recently introduced to and loving the wizarding world, I thought a morning spent cooking up treats from the newly published Afternoon Tea Magic, Official Snacks, Sips and Sweets inspired by the Wizarding World would be fun. And it was. Sort of.
Billed as a “deluxe cookbook” and packed with all the information needed to create a “Harry Potter-inspired afternoon tea”, the book offers fans a range of DIY dishes. In the sweet section, find Dolores Umbridge’s I will make scones recipe, and Molly Weasley’s teatime rhubarb and custard trifles.
The savoury section is home to treats such as Kowalski Bakery’s buttery teatime witch hats with magical herbal broomsticks, and the Deathly Hallows pull-apart teatime bread. In the drinks section, Teddy the Niffler’s milk treat is calorific but delicious, while Trevor’s Toad Pond Punch is perfect for a child’s birthday party.
Fun idea or riddikulus? After a swish and flick through the book, I quickly realised it’s not really for children. Well, little ones anyway; older children will fare better, but will probably still need help. Many dishes have long lists of ingredients with instructions spread across several pages.
With this in mind, I preselected about 10 recipes I thought my children, Indiana, 11, Fox, nine, and Caspian, five, could handle, and that wouldn’t later result in me performing an obliviate spell to purge the experience from my mind.
Imagine my joy, then, when my youngest decided upon the Hungarian Horntail mini teatime cakes, comprising a whopping four-page-long recipe and instructions.
Fox opted for the equally time-consuming Hogwarts Houses four-layer rainbow petits fours, while my eldest went for the one-bite circus animal tea biscuits.
Having baked with the children many times before, I knew from experience that the weighing and measuring part could extend the time spent by hours if not days, so I pre-weighed and measured all the ingredients for my two youngest while letting my eldest do it for his recipe.
'Baking is hard'
The recipe for the Hungarian Horntail mini teatime cakes claimed it would make 12 cupcakes, so how we managed to make an additional eight-inch cake from it, I have no idea. Magic, perhaps? The Geminio doubling charm can be very effective, I hear.
For all three recipes, the pouring into the bowl of flour, sugar, eggs and more was met with glee, as my children love pouring stuff. Pretty soon, though, small arm muscles grew tired of stirring and that’s where I stepped in, in the absence of one of those self-stirring spoons Molly Weasley has.
The Hogwarts Houses four-layer rainbow petits fours recipe required a little (OK, a lot) of substitutions. Out went the strawberry tea bag, Moroccan mint tea bag, lemon-lime tea bag and butterfly pea flower tea in exchange for the artificial flavourings we already had in the baking cupboard. Also out was the blue spirulina powder, replaced by blue food colouring, and the elderberry jam for raspberry.
The one-bite circus animal tea biscuits Indiana chose to make required extra flour to soak up the wet vegetable oil and creme fraiche ingredients, offering him a solid introduction to the mechanics of the rolling pin that caused him to lament: “Baking is hard.”
For the biscuits, we didn’t have the suggested miniature circus animal biscuit cutters, so instead used the cutters we did have, namely circles, stars and flowers. From start to finish, baking the three recipes took about four hours.
Recipes from Privet Drive and the Leaky Cauldron
Each recipe comes with its own introductory spiel about the origin of the dish, including the character it’s associated with and when and where it makes an appearance in the books or films.
Some recipes are instantly recognisable, such as the Leaky Cauldron split-pea teatime soup Harry is offered; and Aunt Petunia’s teatime Windtorte pudding, which Dobby the house elf drops on Mrs Mason’s head during a dinner party at Privet Drive.
Others are inspired by locations, characters or passing mentions. Professor McGonagall’s transfiguration sticky toffee pudding bites feature ice cream cone witches' hats, while only the bravest should attempt the Dementor’s mini chocolate teatime treats.
Some of the recipes don’t have accompanying imagery, rather ironically with Professor Sprout’s bite-size greenhouse mystery cakes, leaving you to figure out what they’re supposed to look like. Others, such as the Divination dream bar tea treats are accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations.
Despite the Harry Potter inspiration, this is a cookbook for grown-ups and older children with a penchant for the kitchen, as young children would need a lot of supervision. Some of the ingredients might not be found in the average home pantry, such as beeswax, fresh lavender buds, bright pink coarse sugar and Hungarian paprika.
Many recipes also require specialist equipment that the baking layperson might not have to hand, including a Madeleine tin, mini heart-shaped waffle iron, canele moulds, wooden mallets and frog and key-shaped plastic moulds. Oh, and a 500g bottle of “very strong waterproof polyurethane adhesive”, which I’m glad to say is not for the cakes, but rather to keep the teapot in Queenie Goldstein’s floating teapot recipe afloat.
While imaginative, the complexity of many of the recipes and the amount of ingredients mean they’re not ones I will rush to do again. Overall, though, the children enjoyed the experience. And their favourite part? “The eating of course,” noted Caspian.
The biogs
Name: Zinah Madi
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The specs
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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England (15-1)
George Furbank; Jonny May, Manu Tuilagi, Owen Farrell (capt), Elliot Daly; George Ford, Ben Youngs; Tom Curry, Sam Underhill, Courtney Lawes; Charlie Ewels, Maro Itoje; Kyle Sinckler, Jamie George, Joe Marler
Replacements: Luke Cowan-Dickie, Ellis Genge, Will Stuart, George Kruis, Lewis Ludlam, Willi Heinz, Ollie Devoto, Jonathan Joseph
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Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Wicked: For Good
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater
Rating: 4/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
Torbal Rayeh Wa Jayeh
Starring: Ali El Ghoureir, Khalil El Roumeithy, Mostafa Abo Seria
Stars: 3
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Results
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8.50pm: Handicap Dh210,000 (D) 2,000m. Winner: Tried And True, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson.
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In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
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Rafael Nadal's record at the MWTC
2009 Finalist
2010 Champion
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Dec 2012 Did not play
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What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
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- Tourism industry knowledge.
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