Final Harry Potter Recipes: Cauldron Cakes & Savory Pumpkin Pasties!

One of you lovelies reminded me this week I never finished posting our Potter recipes from Christmas. Ack!

LET'S FIX THAT.

 

 Here's a quick look again at our main creations: Treacle Tarts (with a twist!), Meat Pasties, Savory Pumpkin Pasties, and Cauldron Cakes.

I've already shared how to make our Treacle Tarts, so let's move on to the other three.

 

The Cauldron Cakes are actually Welsh Cakes, which taste like a mix between a shortbread cookie and pound cake. Very dense, mildly sweet, with chunks of dates mixed in - or Sultanas, if you can get them. The cakes taste amazing on their own or with jam and cream. I even like them cold straight out of the fridge, and had them that way for breakfast a few times with hot tea. NOMZ.

Some recipes call for Welsh Cakes to be thinner, almost like a cookie, but after experimenting I prefer them about biscuit thickness. (An American biscuit, that is.)

John's high-tech Cake cutter. :D

Because I like them that thick, our Cauldron Cakes require an extra few minutes in the oven to fully bake the insides. Thinner cakes can be cooked completely in the pan, though - or on the outside of a cauldron, if you want to go the extra mile for authenticity. ;)

 As it is, we start them in the pan to brown both sides, then finish in the oven to bake the insides.

Then topped with powdered sugar:

Don't worry, I'll have printable recipes for all of these at the end of the post. I'm just doing a photo overview right now.

 I recommend serving your Cauldron Cakes in a little cauldron, of course:

Mine's a bit warped, but I just spotted some cute $10 plastic cauldrons at Walmart for St. Patrick's day. Fingers crossed they go on clearance afterward so I can grab a couple!

Our meat pasties are filled with sausage, mashed potato, carrots, onion, celery, and a little minced garlic.

 Of the two pasties, these were the crowd favorite - but then, it's always hard for the veggie option to compete with old-fashioned meat and potatoes. ;)

 Here's a look at the pumpkin pasties:

These are our own recipe entirely, and went through the most revisions of anything we made. After trying half a dozen different flavor combinations, and pressing many friends and family into service as taste-testers, we arrived at a filling made with pumpkin (natch), sweet potato, onion, cheese, and Worcestershire sauce. 

All that melds together to form a mild pumpkiny paste that's still slightly sweet, but has more of a zing from the cheese and sauce. The chunks of sweet potato give it a much better texture, too, since canned pumpkin is more of a puree. (If you can use fresh pumpkin, that'd be even better.)

[Note: Someone just pointed out our pumpkin pasties aren't technically vegetarian because of the Worcestershire sauce - but if you swap that out, they can be!]

Both pasties are made with store-bought pie crust, which John cut into circles, filled, folded, and crimped. 

 

 John's oh-so-neat pasty filling station.

It helps to put different slashes in the dough for each batch, so you know which filling is which.

Oof, I'm getting hungry again just looking at all these.

And finally, here are the printable recipes for each. Just right-click, save, and print!

I hope this helps some Potter-themed parties out there! If you give any of these a try please let me know how it goes - especially the pumpkin pasties, since I'd love to see what changes you guys would make, if any.

Oh, and if you're planning a Potter party, be sure to check out our Pensieve Punch as well!