Yule Ball – Celebrating 20 years of HPkegle.dk

This last week, I had my birthday! And it so happens that my birthday also marks a lot of important Harry Potter-related events in my life!

A few days before my 12th birthday, the first Harry Potter-movie premiered. Before that, I had heard of Harry Potter, but thought it was over-hyped and not for me. But my sister was going to the premiere of the first movie, and since she was older and cooler, I wanted to go, too. So, 5 days before my birthday, I saw the first movie. I was instantly hooked! The day after, I borrowed the PS1 game from our neighbour, and played it for hours on end. On my birthday, I got the first Harry Potter-book. I remember being annoyed I couldn’t read it because we had guests. And somehow, I still managed to finish it in a day. That’s how my obsession started.

4 years later, I got a voucher for a domain and bought hpkegle.dk. I had already made a free template-style webpage, but at this point, I started learning html/css programming JUST so I could make this webpage. I wanted to bring HP news to a Danish audience. That was 20 years ago.

And so of course, a theme of Yule Ball (since my birthday is also close to Christmas) seemed like a natural choice for a birthday celebration.

I already decided on the theme many months in advance, so I had lots of time to plan it out. I’ve shared photos before of our Christmas tree with Harry Potter-themed decorations, so I already had a lot of decorations in stock. But of course, I really wanted a bewitched ceiling that looks like the sky outside! So I bought some mattress covers and stuck pillow stuffing to them with spray contact glue. I think taped individually adressable LED strips to the ceiling and hung the covers with nails in my ceiling. I also added the popular “floating” candles that you can buy anywhere (mine are from Harald Nyborg). Turned out like this:

Of course, you can’t see the animation in a photo, but trust me when I say it looks really cool and may end up staying there permanently!

Another thing I really wanted was a huge, castle-shaped ice sculpture! But I didn’t want to keep my house cold enough to make it not melt, so instead, my husband 3D modelled and printed it for me! I bought some different glasses cheaply in a 2nd hand shop and added different coloured welcome drinks, just to give it sort of the spirit of the movie. Our sculpture is – of course – smaller, but then again, our house is probably also smaller than the Great Hall.

I didn’t go too hard on the food – experience has taught me that my friends are too busy talking to have much appetite. I did make the Burrow Welcome Wreath from the official Harry Potter-cookbook (which I have in German, because then I don’t need to convert ingredients to metric/celcius). I changed it a little bit; I used fresh yeast instead of dry yeast, because I rarely have success with dry yeast, and I also used pre-made pesto, because I didn’t have time to make it from scratch. I decorated with cherry tomatoes and mini mozzarella balls. It was really yummy, and I would make it again!

As you might notice, I also had found these cute little glass bowls with lids that I added white/blue candy to. It looked really good!

I also tried a few magical drinks; I made pumpkin fizz, also from the Christmas cookbook, which was super yummy. Sadly I forgot to take a photo of the freshly mixed drink, which looked really good served in this pumpkin shaped drinks dispenser (also from Harald Nyborg) filled to the brim with ice and fizzy drink. The drink is a mix of pumpkin, apple juice, various spices and gingerbeer. Yum!

I also made butterbeer! This is one of those things that are usually really difficult to make in Denmark, because many ingredients are hard and expensive to come by – like cream soda and butter extract. I spent a LOT of time researching, and eventually I got a recipe (with some help from AI) with things that I could find in any shop here. And it tastes really good, actually I think it’s very close to the one you can buy in the studios in London – and several friends who also visited there said the same. I’ll share it below the photo!

Butterbeer recipe

Part 1 – The “beer” base (instead of cream soda)

• 1 litre Faxe Kondi, Sprite or any other lemon/lime soda
• ½ litre Apple juice
• ½ litre sparkling water with lemon

Mix these three cold in a large jug.

Part 2 – Butterscotch–butter flavour syrup

• 150 g brown sugar
• 30 g butter
• 200 ml cream 38 %
• 1–2 teaspoon vanilla sugar

How to make the syrup (10 minutes):

1. Melt the butter and sugar together in a small pot over medium heat.
2. Let it bubble gently for 3–4 minutes until it smells like caramel/toffee.
3. Pour in the 200 ml cream – it will bubble wildly – keep stirring for 1–2 minutes until smooth.
4. Add vanilla. Taste – if you want it more butterscotch-y, add another ½ tsk vanilla or a tiny drop of caramel aroma.
5. Let it cool. It thickens into a rich butterscotch sauce. Keeps 2 weeks in the fridge.

Part 3 – The cream topping

• 300 ml piskefløde 38 %
• 2–3 spsk of the butterscotch syrup you just made
• A tiny pinch of salt

Whip the cream until soft peaks, then fold in the butterscotch syrup. It should be thick enough to float on top but still pourable.

(for my party, I bought canned whipped cream and used instead, and added some of the syrup on top – to make it quicker)

To serve:

1. Fill a glass 85–90 % with the cold soda + apple + sparkling water mix.
2. Add 1½ tablespoon of the butterscotch syrup and stir gently (it will swirl and colour the drink light golden).

• 3. Spoon or slowly pour the butterscotch whipped cream on top so it floats in a thick layer.

I also want to give an honorable mention to this recipe, which I tested out a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed, but I didn’t think it scaled well for a large party, so I ended up not making it. But even for me, as a person who doesn’t like beer, I really liked this drink! Here’s the recipe.

And there’s not much more to say. Everyone dressed up nicely, but I won’t show them in case they don’t want to be shared. I will share a last few photos of decorations and of course, my blue ball gown (Ravenclaw represent!) and the dress robe I made for my husband the day before the party.