’Tis the season to be reading and I’m willing to bet there are a bunch of kids (or adults) preparing to read or re-read the Harry Potter books.  I was surprised when first reading the books to discover the huge role of food in the stories.  Pumpkin pasties, meat pies, sausages, potatoes, rock cakes, cider, licorice, butter beer.  Wait.  Um, butter beer?  Sounds good, but what is it?

I decided to do a bit of research.  It turns out that when J.K. Rowling wrote about butter beer she had in mind a butterscotch type flavor.  There was no recipe.  When I find something in a book that sounds delicious and there is no recipe, I normally have a brief moment of anger at the author for making me hungry and not providing the immediate blueprint for satisfying that food craving.

Drat you Rex Stout!  Drat you and Fritz and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin all to hecky durn.  Where in the world am I going to get a dozen starlings and a culinary genius of a Swiss national to stew them in saffron for me?

I then become rational once again and either recognize that I’ll probably never get to eat that dish (as in the stewed starlings) or I produce my own version.  With a jumping off point like butterscotch and the description that accompanied it in the book, I figured I could probably produce a decent version of butter beer myself.

In the books, butter beer was served both hot and cold.  For simplicity’s sake, I started with the cold version, but you can just as easily serve this warm by gently heating in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat or in the microwave.

Does anyone else see that house elf hiding behind my butter beer?

That was such a lame picture that I might have to make more butter beer later to try another shot.  Er, I mean another photo.

Butter Beer

The alcohol content in this is very low.  However, for the wee bairns, substitute butterscotch syrup for the butterscotch schnapps.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons Vanilla Simple Syrup
• 1/4 cup Butterscotch Schnapps (for children, use 2 Tbl butterscotch syrup)
• 1/3 cup apple cider, chilled
• Plain Seltzer Water, chilled

Method:

Pour vanilla syrup into the bottom of a tall glass.  Add schnapps and cider.  Stir to combine.  Top off the glass with plain seltzer water and have your lips ready to sip at the foamy head that threatens to pour over the edge.  Enjoy!

The post above is taken from Rebecca Lindamood’s blog archives. For her most recent recipes, kitchen tips and parenting adventures, visit FoodieWithFamily.com. Rebecca also writes a monthly column in the Record-Eagle’s Food section.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Cook's Corner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.