Better-Than-Hagrid's Rock Cakes

I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. I have been since I was in about third grade (when I did a book report on the Chamber of Secrets). I went to the midnight release parties for books 6 & 7, and my friends and I made wands out of sticks (we debarked, sanded and finished them). I’ve read the books countless times, and I hate the movies because of that. I even have a Harry Potter shrine.

It would be assumed that I would love to have the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, but I wasn’t really that interested. I perused it one time I was at Barnes and Noble, and the recipes just looked sort of boring. My sister’s fiancé, Mark, got me the book for Christmas, however, and I ended up loving it (he got me a Harry Potter coloring book last year). I was a bit skeptical at first, but I tried out these rock cakes, and I was sold.

Before you start worrying, these rock cakes are not hard like Hagrid’s. They’re soft, lightly sweet, lightly spiced and perfect with a cup of tea. Very easy to make, too!

Better-Than-Hagrid’s Rock Cakes
adapted from Dinah Bucholz’s The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook
yields about 1 dozen rock cakes
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 t baking powder
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (the original recipe calls for 1 stick of butter)
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 ºF and grease a large cookie sheet. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the applesauce (or butter) into the dry ingredients until the mixture becomes coarse crumbs (the consistency of wet sand). Beat the egg together with the milk and pour it into the mixture. Fold it together using a spatula to form a stiff dough. Fold in the raisins. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes or until the bottoms are golden.

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