We have all heard of the nerve-wracking giant spider Aragog. But what if he was edible? Unappetizing, right? Well, have faith in your baking and decoration skills and read on. And if your Boggart is Aragog, count on me when I say you can recall this sweet treat to defeat the boggart. This recipe will make any fear of Aragog seem Riddikulus.

"Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet

Eating her curds and whey

Along came a spider and sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away"

This is a popular Muggle nursery rhyme. Well, with that one to add some spice, I would like to introduce to you my frighteningly delicious Halloween sweet treat recipe, Aragog on my Pumpkin. It would be so scary if Aragog sat on my beloved pumpkin or carried my pumpkin away. I bet you would not like it either. Therefore, this Halloween, I decided to bring you my recipe for this scary yet delectable dessert to spook you out of your imagination and senses.

This is essentially my take on the popular favorite Halloween dish, pumpkin pie, with the terrifying, enormous giant spider Aragog, made of chocolate and fondant, sitting on a whipped cream, meringue and white chocolate spider web on my pumpkin pie. Read on to know how to make it.

To start with,

gather your ingredients (serves 1 pie): -

Plain flour - 1 and 1/2 cups (6 and 1/4 ounces)

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

Unsalted butter, cubed & chilled - 1/2 cup (4 ounces)

Icing sugar - 1/4 cup (1 ounce)

Butternut pumpkin, peeled, cubed - 600g

Ground ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon - 1/2 teaspoon

Treacle - 2 tablespoon

Thickened cream - 1/2 cup (4 ounces)

Eggs - 3

Soft, brown sugar, lightly packed - 1 cup (7 and 1/2 ounces)

Whipped cream - for the decoration (for making whipped cream, you can add fresh heavy cream and powdered sugar to taste in a chilled bowl, or any bowl that has been dunked into the freezer for a few minutes, from my personal experience, casting the Chilling Charm on the bowl and trying to make whipped cream in it results in disaster, then beat the fresh heavy cream and powdered sugar together with a hand whisk. Whisk whisk whisk until stiff peaks are formed. If correctly whisked, the whipped cream should defy gravity and not drop off your hand whisk. Do not overbeat though, as overbeating will cause clumping and chunks of butter will be formed along with a separated, runny liquid)

Chocolate chips (optional)

Edible gold syrup (optional)

Equipment: - plastic wrap, aluminium foil, non-stick baking paper, 25 cm flan tin with raised edges and removable base

Baking the pumpkin pie: -

In a bowl, take the flour, salt and butter and grind until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Lightly beat an egg. In another bowl, combine the beaten egg and some icing sugar by whisking with a fork. Add this to the above mixture and knead into dough. Knead the dough into a ball and wrap in a plastic wrap. Put this in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Wrap the pumpkin cubes in aluminium foil and place them on a baking tray.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Roast the foil wrapped pumpkin cubes in the oven at 200°C for 1 hour. The pumpkin should have turned tender. Set aside for cooling.

Unwrap the foil and place the pumpkin cubes in a bowl. Add the ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, treacle and thickened cream, then mix thoroughly.

Beat 2 eggs and the brown sugar together in a small bowl, then pour into the above mixture. The resulting mix is your pie-filling.

Now, take the dough from the freezer and bring it to room temperature, after it has chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes. Roll it out to 4 mm thickness between two sheets of the non-stick baking paper. Then, press the rolled out dough into your flan tin and trim the edges neatly with a knife. This will form the shell of your pie or your pie crust. Then, put your flan tin along with the to-be pie crust into the freezer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove from the freezer and line your to-be pie-crust with non-stick baking paper. Fill up the to-be pie with rice or baking weights and bake for 5 minutes at 170°C.

Then, take the now hardened pie-crust out, remove the rice or baking weights and fill up the pie with your previously prepared pie-filling. Pour in the filling and even out on top, spreading carefully, to ensure that the top of the pie looks uniform. Bake the pie with the filling for 1 hour at 170°C. When finished, the filling should be set properly. If the filling is not set, bake further, checking every 5 minutes. Once the filling sets, your pumpkin pie is ready. Then, remove the pumpkin pie from the oven and set it aside for cooling.

Optional step - Spread your chocolate chips over the top surface of your pumpkin pie making it look like the soil, thus giving an aesthetic feel and a more realistic look.

Optional step - Drizzle edible golden syrup in intricate patterns to make the pie look more beautiful.

Use a piper (or piping bag that you can make yourself by cutting off the corner of a plastic bag and replacing the resulting hole with a piping nozzle) with a very thin piping nozzle to pipe some criss-cross spider web patterns with whipped cream across the top surface of the pumpkin pie. Feel free to be as creative as you like because Aragog was certainly creative with his huge spiderweb homes.

Now, let's make Aragog his dainty spiderweb home on my pumpkin pie (eww did I just say that? )

Like I always say,

gather your ingredients: -

Egg whites - from 2 large eggs

Cream of tartar - 1/4 teaspoon

Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

Sugar - 1/2 cup (4 ounces)

Vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon

Equipments: Piper or piping bag with a very thin nozzle, parchment paper

The process of spinning the spider web: -

To make the meringue spiderwebs, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt together until foamy. Add sugar 1 tablespoon at a time while you keep beating. Beat until the meringue is glossy and forms stiff peaks. If meringue has formed correctly, it won't drop off your beater or whisk. Do not overbeat or the meringue will clump and separate into chunks and a liquid. Add the vanilla extract. Fill the meringue inside a piper or a piping bag with a very thin nozzle. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Then, pipe out and draw intricate spiderweb patterns with the meringue, on the parchment paper. Be as creative as you like.

Preheat the oven to 200º F. Bake the meringue spiderwebs on the baking tray lined with parchment paper, for 25-35 minutes. Once the spiderwebs have hardened enough, carefully transfer them to the top surface of your pumpkin pie, making sure not to break any.

There, we have now built Aragog's home.

Some more additional touches are required to make Aragog's home look cool.

As usual,

gather your ingredients: -

White chocolate chips - 1 cup (6 ounces)

Butter - 4 tablespoons (2 ounces)

To make finishing touches for finesse,

In a double boiler, melt the white chocolate with the butter, while stirring continuously, then transfer to a bowl. Ensure no water gets in the melted chocolate or else it will clump. Let the melted white chocolate cool but not until it gets too thick. It should not remain too runny either. If you accidentally thicken your chocolate too much, simply melt it again in the double boiler. Pour out the melted chocolate into a piper or piping bag. Pipe the melted white chocolate in thin strands between the meringue spiderwebs to make them look interconnected. Feel free to use your creativity and imagination, Aragog will be happy.

Now that his home is ready to receive and welcome him, let's usher in the villain now (only I wish his home was not on my pumpkin pie, "sobs" ). Read on to make our chocolate and fondant giant spider villain, Aragog.

To begin the process,

gather your ingredients: -

White chocolate chips - 2

Fondant - just enough to make a large Aragog, big enough to sit on the pumpkin pie but not bigger

Red food coloring - 1 and 1/2 teaspoons

Blue food coloring - 1 teaspoon

Green food coloring - 1/2 teaspoon

Powdered sugar/cornstarch

Here comes the villain. Aragog was born, in times forlorn, in the Hogwarts castle, and Hagrid's reputation acquired a stain: -

Mix the three food colorings together in a bowl thoroughly to achieve a black food coloring.

Lightly dust a surface with powdered sugar or cornstarch.

Take your ball of fondant and knead it on the surface for a while.

Transfer the fondant to a bowl.

Pour the black food coloring on the fondant, then knead again, mixing the food coloring thoroughly into the dough, until the fondant is evenly black. You can also make Aragog completely first, then paint the black food coloring onto Aragog's body with a paintbrush.

Knead the fondant on the surface dusted with powdered sugar/cornstarch again. Make a ball roughly the size of a large egg or bigger and make it as spherical in shape as you can, to form the body of Aragog. Flatten the base a bit so it can sit properly. With a knife, core out two tiny holes for eyes on the front of Aragog's body close to the top. Push in the white chocolate chips firmly into the holes to make Aragog's eyes. Roll the rest of the fondant into a cylindrical pipe with proportionately the width of Aragog's legs. Cut lengthwise to make eight evenly long and equally wide legs for Aragog. Using your fingers, knead the lower parts of the legs to make them slightly narrower. Attach the fondant legs to Aragog's fondant body, pushing in the legs firmly into the body at the joints and kneading at the joints softly with your fingers. Use your knife to cut out a mouth or other details if you like. There, our enormous and appalling villain, Aragog, is ready. Carefully lift him and place him on top of his home.

While the appalling Aragog sits on top of my pumpkin, and I attempt to cast 'Araneus Exumai' to repel him only to realise he is edible and made of chocolate and fondant, Happy Halloween, good night and spooky dreams.

Sources: - https://www.chelsea.co.nz/browse-recipes/halloween-pumpkin-pie/

https://thefirstyearblog.com/spider-web-meringues/