Honeydukes Sampler Box

As I said in my last post, I'm going to expand on the Honeydukes Sampler Box I gave my almost-16-year-old sister for Christmas. Although it was a bit of work to put together (both in making some of the sweets, and finding some of the more elusive ones in shops) it was fun and Christine's reaction (squealing, bouncing up and down in her chair and clapping) was definitely worth it!

The insert in the sample box

Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans--A Risk With Every Mouthful!" - Advertisement at the Quidditch World Cup (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

Jelly Belly used to manufacture actual "Bertie Botts" beans. I'm guessing their licence has expired though, because while they still manufacture a weird-flavoured-beans product, they are not called "Bertie Botts". They're called "Beanboozled Beans". They come in very little boxes, for about $4- $5, depending where you get them from. So I bought one box of Beanboozled beans and a bag of regular Jelly Belly beans, then combined them. So the beans were predominantly normal flavours, with a few weird ones thrown in.

Ice Mice
"Hear your teeth chatter and squeak!" - Advertisement in Honeydukes (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

I made these from fondant (plastic icing), using green hundreds and thousands for the eyes. The noses are just fondant with red food colouring. Many of the blogs I read suggested making Ice Mice from chocolate, using a mint filling, but nothing in the books suggests to me that they are made from chocolate or mint-flavoured. They hardened upon being left in the fridge for several days after making. I imagine they'd harden even if left out, but I didn't want ants getting to them.


Cockroach Clusters
"Reckon Fred'd take a bit of Cockroach Cluster if I told him they were peanuts ?"- Ron Weasley (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

I originally intended to make these as a bunch of peanuts with toffee drizzled over them, but ended up making them basically as toffees with peanuts in them. Many of the blogs I read suggested making these out of chocolate too, with caramel and peanuts inside, but again I don't think the books suggest they're made of chocolate. Judging from Ron's quote (above), I thought they must at least look like peanuts, which is why I chose to use peanuts. I chose toffee as a way to 'cluster' the peanuts.

The picture above is the basic idea - the ones I included in the Honeydukes Box had more peanuts and were made in silicone cups, so were popped out and then wrapped in the baking paper.

Sherbet Lemons
"They're a muggle sweet I'm rather fond of," - Professor Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

I found these in a local lolly shop, after much searching. I also saw them online in a few places. In the US version of the first few books, they are called "lemon drops" because they thought Americans would think of an icy dessert upon reading the word "sherbet". Sherbet Lemons and Lemon drops are two very different sweets. You can do your own research, but if you're an American looking for an authentic Harry Potter sweet, go for JK Rowling's original Sherbet Lemons and not Lemon Drops. We see in Prisoner of Azkaban that Honeydukes does sell Muggle sweets, so it's possible they also sell Sherbet Lemons, especially seeing as Dumbledore is so fond of them.


Drooble's Best-Blowing Gum

"...along yet another (Honeydukes) wall were "Special Effects" sweets: Droobles Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-coloured bubbles that refused to pop for days)..." (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

These were just gum balls bought at a local lolly shop. I wanted to go for all blue gum balls, due to the "bluebell-coloured bubbles" described in the books, but I would have had to go digging through the tub of gum balls to find enough blue ones, so was content to have multi-coloured gum balls.


Chocolate Frogs
"What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not really frogs, are they?" (On the Hogwarts Express - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

I bought chocolate frogs from Darrel Lea (these were in the shape of normal frogs, not Freddo Frogs) and made pentagonal boxes for them to go in, like the movies, from this pattern. I also made collector's cards using this template. I didn't have the creativity or motivation to figure out how to colour the boxes so just left them white, but if I'd had time, I would have found some purple cardboard to make them out of, so they were at least coloured.

Click on the image of the chocolate frog card to see an enlarged version and see what I wrote for Hermione's Chocolate Frog Card.


Fizzing Whizzbees
"...and another (barrel) of Fizzing Whizbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned..." (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

These were probably the least accurate to the book. I bought some Sherbet UFOs from the same local lolly shop that I got everything else. The book describes them as sherbet balls, but I couldn't find sherbet balls anywhere. I did find these Lemonade Fizzballs and Fizzy Wizzy online, but they had a minimum order quantity that I was not going to buy.


Golden Toffees
"There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable (in Honeydukes). Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-coloured toffees..."

I just made toffees at home. I made them in silicone cups and popped them out, then wrapped them individually in aluminium foil to stop them sticking together, then all together in baking paper.


Chocolate Fudge
"Honeydukes have got a new kind of fudge, they were giving out free samples, there's a bit, look..." -Ron Weasley (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

I also made my own fudge but you could also buy some. I just wrapped a slab of it in baking paper.