Feeling Abandoned Yet?

Apologies for our less than consistent posting.  We're a little busy.  What with our magicless existence and all. (If anyone would like to send me a charm for laundry, I'd be much obliged.)

But don't fret - the butterbeer has not been forgotten.  Quite the opposite in fact!  It has been created and consumed.  Just in time too, since the temperatures in my part of the world are starting to drop and frozen beverages are losing their appeal.  Although if it does snow soon, I may have to try yet another approach to this yummy goodness. 

The new cast of characters.  It's a small crew, but they pack a punch. Leading characters: cream soda, butterscotch syrup, shortbread syrup, heavy whipping cream, dulce de leche ice cream.  Butter pictured due to its title role only.

I will admit, it did NOT take the soda 6 weeks to freeze. Honestly, it didn't even take 6 days.  It probably took at least 6 hours, but at this point I don't suppose it matters.  When I finally took my soda out of the freezer when I was confident that it would no longer be a liquid, it looked something like this: 



Soda pictured above was attacked with a fork prior to being photographed.

  

Not quite the snowy like substance that I was aiming for, but it was a start.  And I knew just what to do with it.

Yes, I know it still looks like a rather solid mass. But really, after leaving the soda in the freezer for well, a while, I was somewhat lucky to get it out of the bowl.  

After about a minute in the blender, the rock-solid soda was becoming a little more snow-like.  It took  a couple more minutes before the texture was what I wanted it to be.  Then it was time to move on to the foam.

I liked the foam that I made last time, but it was lacking the right amount of substance.  Sweetened heavy cream was definitely going in the right direction, but it needed something more.  Something like ice cream.  How could adding ice cream to butterbeer possibly be a bad thing?  I used dulce de leche in this version, as there were definitely caramely undertones to the drink that I had in the promised land and this way I could kill two deatheaters with one spell.



Note: whip the foam a LOT.  With your mixer as high as possible without causing a giant kitchen mess.



This foam was positively delightful.  I added a 1/2 teaspoon of each of the syrups (butterscotch & shortbread) just before I was done mixing and the flavor was as near perfect as I could hope for.  Then I dumped as much as I could into my trusty bottle (with newly resized opening).

At this point I just scooped some of my fun soda-slush into a mug, topped it with the happiness-coma inducing foam and it was ready to serve:

The verdict: excellence!  I made one version where I added a dash of butterscotch syrup to the slush as well, which was also quite good, but it's not necessary and potentially slightly overdone.  The first couple were made while the slush was still quite cold from its freezer-vacation, so some of the foam nearly became ice cream again.  As the slush warmed slightly the texture was a little better, so I'd suggest either not freezing your soda quite as long as I did *ahem* or letting it melt just a bit before blending it for your drink.

So just in time for your pre and/or post Deathly Hallows Pt. 1-viewing pleasure, here's your recipe for frozen butterbeer!  For my part, I'll be both seeing the movie and checking out the Harry Potter Exhibition on Thanksgiving Day!  Stay tuned to the blog though!  There's more to the Hogwarts Kitchens than Butterbeer, and we've been cooking away!

Frozen Butterbeer
Courtesy of The Butterbeer Chronicles

1/2 Liter your favorite cream soda, frozen & blended
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 scoop dulce de leche ice cream
1/2 teaspoon shortbread syrup
1/2(+) teaspoon butterscotch syrup