I’m really happy with the way these came out! I hope you enjoy!

Recipe follows

Mincemeat Filling:

Just a heads up. You’ll need to make this at least one day in advance.

2 small apples (peeled, cored, and sliced into thick slices)

1 1/4 cups raisins

1/2 cup sugar

3 dried figs

1/3 cup dried cherries

2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger

1/4 cup brandy + a few tablespoons more if the mixture seems dry (you can sub apple juice or apple cider)

zest of 1 orange

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until everything is finely chopped.  You don’t want it to be a paste, but all the fruits should be the same size and the mixture should be moist and hold together a bit.  If it seems to try add a few tablespoons more of brandy or apple juice. Put in a covered container and refrigerate overnight or for three days, though it will probably last longer.

Crust

This crust worked out really well for me, but any crust would be good with this, so use your favorite if you have one.

1 1/3 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tablespoon sugar

4 tablespoons non hydrogenated vegetable shortening

4 tablespoons non hydrogenated margarine

About 1/4 cup of ice water

Directions

Combine flour, salt and sugar in a bowl or food processor. Add the margarine and shortening in small pieces and combine with a pastry cutter or fork or blend in the food processor until it resembles a course meal.  Add the water by the tablespoon and combine until the dough comes together in a ball or can be easily pressed together.  Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Take the dough out of the refrigerator, unwrap and place onto a piece of parchment paper on a counter top (or lightly flour the counter).  Place another piece of parchment onto the top of the crust and roll out the dough until it is approximately 1/8 inch thick.

Using a 4 inch biscuit cutter or something of a similar size (I used the round lid from a tub of raisins), cut out circles of dough and reroll the scraps a few times to get 9 circles.  Cut out small stars from the remaining dough to place on top of the pies.  Fit each circle of dough into the cup of a regular sized muffin tin.

After you’ve placed the crust into 9 tins, fill each with mincemeat filling up to the very top of the crust.  Place a star on top of each pie and sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Place the pies in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the crust is golden brown.  When they are done, allow them to cool to room temperature before attempting to remove them from the pan.  ENJOY!

Chocolate-covered pretzel “wands” almost feel like a cop-out post, because they’re easy to make and simple to veganize… you just have to make sure your pretzel rods and chocolate chips are vegan. However, I’ve added a special twist to regular ol’ chocolate-covered pretzels: clear sugar sprinkles on the end to make them look like they’re casting a spell. I also sprayed the ends with silver food spray paint (found at a craft store in the cake decorating section) to make them shimmer.

Ingredients:
20 pretzel rods
1/2 C chocolate chips
2 tsp vegetable shortening
Clear sugar sprinkles, edible glitter, or turbinado or demerara sugar

Directions
If you don’t have a double boiler, fashion a makeshift one by putting water inside a medium-large pot and putting another, slightly smaller pot inside. Melt chocolate and shortening in the smaller pot over medium-low heat, stirring often.

Dip one end of each pretzel rod in the chocolate, twirling to make sure all sides are covered. Gently dip the tip in the sugar and place on wax paper to set. Repeat for each pretzel rod.

Optional: Once set, spray the ends with silver food color mist.

Nox.

Well, one thing that I’m known for is making gay cakes, so of course I had to make a Dumbledore gay cake! This cake is lemon flavored, something that would please Dumbledore himself… remember the password to his office in Chamber of Secrets? Lemon drop! I used the lemon gem cupcake recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance for the cake, and topped and decorated it with a basic vegan buttercream.

Three cheers for Grindeldore!

Our pal Kris from Nom! Nom! Nom! has been cooking up a storm in these last days before the final (*sob) movie premiere!

First up, she’s got some aptly named (they’re full of garlic!) Dementor’s Kiss bread twists, made in the shape of the Dark Mark. As an evil witch myself (remember my Delightfully Dark Mark cookies?), I very much appreciate these.

Next up, she’s got Mrs. Weasley’s Easy-as-Magic Fudge! Mrs. Weasley cooks up the best food ever, so if it’s got her name on it you know it’s going to be great (and easy, because she is one busy mama)!

It seems like all the Hogwarts kids eat dessert 24/7, but they have to eat real food sometimes, too, right? Ron shoves a Cornish Pasty into his mouth at some point during the Triwizard Tournament, so I take it these are probably not an everyday Hogwarts food.  These savory pockets of dough filled with seitan, carrots, potatoes and onions do seem like they’d make a great spectator food!

Technically, I don’t think I’m allowed to call these Cornish Pasties because they don’t have the traditional turnip or rutabaga and they weren’t made in Cornwall, but I did my best to stick to tradition even though I added some spices and wine, which traditional recipes don’t have.

What I really like about these is that you don’t need to cook the filling before filling the pies – the traditional recipes seem to just place the meat and veg right onto the dough and bake.  For this reason, it’s important that you cut your potatoes and vegetables pretty small, so that they can cook through before the dough gets too crunchy.  Seitan is perfect in these, but I bet some marinated tempeh or fake chicken strips would be great, too.

Dough

This is the empanada dough from Veganomicon without the cornmeal and it’s the easiest to work with, flakiest crust I’ve ever made.  It’s the same as the pumpkin pasties, but with whole wheat flour and a bit more margarine.

2 ¼ cups whole wheat flour (I like King Arthur’s White Whole Wheat)

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

½ tsp baking powder

½ cup non hydrogenated shortening

2 tablespoons non hydrogenated margarine

½ – ¾  cup cold water

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl.  Add the shortening in small chunks and mix on low-med speed until the dough is crumbly and resembles pebbles.  Add the vinegar to ½ a cup of the water and add slowly while the mixer is going or in batches if not using an electric mixer.    The dough should form a ball.  If it’s still crumbly add a little more water until it holds together.   Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Pasty Filling

12oz seitan cut into 1/4 inch cubes

6-8 oz potatoes (4 small potatoes) – peeled and diced into 1/4 inch cubes

1 cup of carrots – diced into 1/4 inch cubes

1 small onion, diced

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp rosemary

1/4 cup white wine or broth

Preheat the oven to 375. In a bowl combine the seitan, potatoes, carrots and onions.  Add the salt,pepper, thyme, rosemary and wine. Mix and set aside while you roll out the dough.

Roll the dough into a circle that is about 1/4 inch thick.  Cut the dough into 6 or 7, six inch circles. I used my 4 cup measuring cup for this. I got 4 circles the first time, and then three more rolling out the scraps.

Take a circle and roll it out a bit more with your rolling pin and put a heaping 1/4 cup of filling into the center of the dough.  Fold the dough over and press with a fork to seal the edges.  Place the pasties on a baking sheet and cut three slits in the top of each and then brush with some unsweetened non-dairy milk to make them shiny.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the tops are golden brown and you can poke a knife or fork through one of the slits and feel that the potatoes are done.

1/15/10 edit: Vegan Dad added the last recipe for his Very Potter New Year’s party to his blog just yesterday! He made Hogwart’s Tofu with Roasted Vegetables, a dish based off of the meat-and-potatoes Ron’s always stuffing his face with in the Great Hall.

On to the cookies: Much like Harry himself, I had a very hard time figuring out which to choose: hallows or horcruxes? Hallows or horcruxes? Luckily my choice wasn’t a matter of life and death, but a matter of taste. I originally planned on making horcrux cakes based off these ones posted on Nom! Nom! Nom! blog (they even have a real black magic soul!), but had to write a paper for my muggle studies class and ran out of time so I just made these deathly hallows cookies. Since the trio is camping throughout most of the book I wanted to make something campy, so they are trail mix cookies with the deathly hallows symbol on top for all you believers out there.

Deathly Hallows Trail Mix Cookies

3/4 C peanut butter
1/2 C earth balance
1 1/4 C brown sugar
3 T nondairy milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 T ground flaxseeds mixed with 3 T water
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 C chocolate chips
1/3 C walnuts
1/4 C raisins
1/4 C shredded coconut

1/2 C chocolate chips for decorating

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream together PB, EB, and sugar. Add milk, vanilla, and flax/water mixture and mix until combined.

Add flour, salt and baking soda and mix until just combined. Fold in the rest of the ingredients.

Drop by tablespoonfuls on a prepared cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Bake for about 12 minutes (they will puff up and then flatten out a bit, after they have flattened and are golden brown they are finished).

Once the cookies are fully cooled, melt chocolate chips in the microwave or double boiler. Transfer to a ziplock bag, cut the corner off, and decorate.

Variations: Add 1 tablespoon instant coffee in with the liquid ingredients for extra immortality. Add different nuts, seeds, or dried fruit to your pleasing.

Check them out here: http://nomnomnomblog.com/2010/11/02/hagrids_not_horrible_rock_cakes/

The first time I tried making this it didn’t turn out too well, but at least the results made really good pineapple-berry smoothies instead of going to waste. I then worked out what I had been doing incorrectly and gave it another try so now I can bring you a proper recipe! A warning though, this is fairly time-consuming and works much better if you have a dehydrator (unlike me).

Also, when you’re finished with the syrup don’t just throw it out. You nowhave pineapple syrup, which can be used for countless awesome things… sweeten iced tea, use in a frosting or glaze for coconut cupcakes (or coconut pancakes!), mix with cream soda and make a pineapple soda/coconut ice cream float, pineapple curried rice… the ideas are endless!

Professor Slughorn’s Crystallized Pineapple
amounts vary depending on how much pineapple you’re using

1 pineapple, or canned pineapple rings
Sugar
Water

If using fresh pineapple: Peel, cut into 1/4 inch slices, and cut out the core so you have nice little pineapple rings. (if using canned pineapple: open can and drain.)

In a large pot, make a simple syrup: 1 part sugar to 2 parts water. I used 4 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar for my one pineapple, but you just want to make sure the syrup will cover all the fruit. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Bring your syrup to a boil (if using a candy thermometer, it should reach 235F). Add fruit and bring back to a simmer. Cook for about an hour, covered, until the pineapple is translucent.

Remove pineapple from pot and put on a cooling rack placed on top of a cookie sheet to drain.

Next step is to dry the fruit out. If you have a dehydrator, great! You can use that! However, if you do not have one just put the fruit (on the cooling rack & cookie sheet contraption) in your oven at 200F until dry. This may take a while. Or, you could apparate to a desert and set it out in the sun to dry out.

Once your candied pineapple is dry, sprinkle with sugar and let cool. Store in an airtight container.