Friday, October 1, 2010
Creating Butterbeer
9:34 PM | 
Posted by
Kevin
Last night, I attempted -- and succeeded -- in making butterbeer. If you're not familiar with what that is, it's a made-up drink from Harry Potter. Or, at least it was made-up until the arrival of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, Florida.
Since the opening of the park butterbeer has now been in stock! J.K. Rowling herself tasted different concoctions of this famous drink until she found it just right. Like so many good things, however, the exact recipe isn't known and may never be. To our good fortune, many have tried to imitate that taste and have been kind enough to post their own recipes on such places as Mugglenet.com, which is one of the most successful Harry Potter fan sites on the internet. Several recipes exist, one even including extract of rum to match the slightly alcoholic taste the books imply the drink has. Though each recipe has its own little spin, they generally follow the same format, which leads me to believe that I was fairly close in creating the drink that the many characters -- and fans -- of Harry Potter have come to know and love.
I mostly followed a recipe that was posted on Mugglenet, and rather than re-post it as if it were my own like an asshole would, here's a link to the recipe I used. The only difference is I took a couple liberties, which I'll explain later. As the note above the recipe says, the woman who came up with this recipe said her idea of butterbeer resembled a "whipped shortbread cookie." After creating the drink, I came to this very conclusion.
With that, onto the procedure! As pointed out in the recipe, several ingredients are needed:
Since the opening of the park butterbeer has now been in stock! J.K. Rowling herself tasted different concoctions of this famous drink until she found it just right. Like so many good things, however, the exact recipe isn't known and may never be. To our good fortune, many have tried to imitate that taste and have been kind enough to post their own recipes on such places as Mugglenet.com, which is one of the most successful Harry Potter fan sites on the internet. Several recipes exist, one even including extract of rum to match the slightly alcoholic taste the books imply the drink has. Though each recipe has its own little spin, they generally follow the same format, which leads me to believe that I was fairly close in creating the drink that the many characters -- and fans -- of Harry Potter have come to know and love.
I mostly followed a recipe that was posted on Mugglenet, and rather than re-post it as if it were my own like an asshole would, here's a link to the recipe I used. The only difference is I took a couple liberties, which I'll explain later. As the note above the recipe says, the woman who came up with this recipe said her idea of butterbeer resembled a "whipped shortbread cookie." After creating the drink, I came to this very conclusion.
With that, onto the procedure! As pointed out in the recipe, several ingredients are needed:
1 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of water
2 tablespoons of butter
1/2 teaspoons of cider vinegar
1 cup of heavy cream (divided into 1/2 cups)*
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice
Four 12-ounce bottles of cream soda
* Whipped cream works, but making your own is much more fun.
Also needed is an extra 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for the whipped topping.
The first procedure was to mix the sugar extract, as I call it, since the predominant ingredient is sugar. After adding the brown sugar and water, the step was to mix it and let it boil until it was 240 degrees.
Note that that's actually a little more boiling than I needed, but that's essentially what it looks like. After reaching 240 degrees, the next step is adding the butter, cider vinegar and 1/2 cup of the heavy cream, and setting aside for cooling.
Once cooled, the vanilla extract is added as well as the pumpkin spice. Remember I said something about taking a couple liberties with the recipe? This was the first one. The recipe calls for a dash of pumpkin spice -- I did more, because pumpkin spice is AWESOME! Trust me, just that little bit extra was worth it. Instead of 1/8 of a teaspoon, I added 1/4. I also added a little extra vanilla for flavor.
The result:
I know it doesn't look too different from the above picture, so sue me! *Ahem* Well, that's how it looks after all the ingredients are stirred. After mixed, set it in the fridge and let it cool.
Meanwhile, I made the whipped topping. This was done with the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream and the two extra tablespoons of brown sugar. These were mixed with an electric mixer. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it because I was lame, but trust me when I say the result was something like whipped cream with a brown coloring, and it was delicious!
Finally, the sugar extract has cooled down.
Using four tall glasses the extract was divided among 1/4 cups for each. After, I pretty much used one bottle of cream soda per glass. Before dumping all of the bottle inside, though, I used about 1/4 cup of soda and mixed it with the extract, to give it the butterscotch looking color it shows it pictures. The remaining soda was then poured.
Finally, a scoop or two of the whipped topping was added. This was where the second liberty came in: more pumpkin spice. Because, it really is that awesome. I sprinkled some more spice onto the topping.
Here is the final result:
And the result was amazingly delicious!
This was a really fun experience, and well worth it (except for the clean-up). This is a really nice treat to have every once in a while. I warn you though, the sugar content in this thing is ridiculous! Don't overdo it!
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2 comments:
I really want to try this. My dad and I have been imagine butterbeer for ages. It looks and sounds fabulous!
That's pretty cool. I'm going to try making this on the weekend!
An interesting side note: my boyfriends dad was one of the main guys responsible for seeing Harry Potter World come to life. He got to meet JK Rowling and do all that fun stuff. Somewhere in his office he's got a mini version of the whole amuseent park layout. He has the coolest job in the world.
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