In the mysterious land of…Rhode Island…is a house with dark secrets. Well, the basement has some dark secrets. Unless you’re shopping for Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent. In that case, you’re totally in the right place!
Welcome to the home of the Adams family, where Art major Corinne and her building contractor husband have recreated a fully functional Knockturn Alley. Here, witches and wizards can shop to their heart’s delight.
A huge Potter fan, the idea for Knockturn Alley was sparked by a trip to Universal Orlando. Corinne and her husband were already doing elaborate Halloween displays, but the trip inspired the creation of Borgin and Burkes. When the set got too large to haul outdoors in October, the couple cleaned out their basement and the construction continued in earnest. Currently up to five shops (2 for browsing, 3 for display), magically-minded shoppers can see self-stirring cauldrons, Kreacher the house elf, Cornish Pixies, books, bones, potions, and cursed objects, all whilst shrouded in fog.
When is Knockturn Alley open to visitors?
Since Knockturn Alley is in my house, my basement, it is only open to the neighborhood on Halloween night. If you know me or are writing a story about the alley then I can have a private tour arranged.
What proved the biggest challenge to recreate so far?
The biggest challenge, believe it or not, was the stacked cauldrons. They are plastic Halloween cauldrons and we had to hunt for the right sizes, paint them to look rusty and then sand them to look like old iron. When it came time to stack and glue them it took a bit of engineering until we got it right. My son also designed and made the self-stirring cauldron and he had a few setbacks. But now it works perfectly…well, it’s a magical cauldron after all!
What is one of the most surprising things on your set?
The biggest surprise, if someone notices it, is the sub-basement in the bottom windows of Borgin and Burkes. (A “reflection” makes you think you’re looking down into the below ground level cellar window well-bottles, books, rats, candles etc. are all actually upside down-you’re looking into a mirror image–shhh, don’t tell!)
How many hours of construction and fabrication do you estimate you’ve put in?
The work time is 3 years of every spare minute we had and my husband and I both worked full time. Now it is an on-going project and we come up with little magical ways to tweak things and add new things for each Halloween.
Tell us about your favorite object and why!
I have been asked before “what is my favorite thing” but I love everything! However my favorite shop is Borgin and Burkes (in the movie it just looks so creepy and fascinating!) and that was the first shop constructed for our Halloween display 7 years ago. Then the project just took off until we now have an alley of 5 buildings.
What are you building next?
The next thing to be built is a surprise because we like to surprise the neighborhood kids when they visit Halloween night! Last year’s new item was the Sirius Black “moving” poster that my son came up with and my husband built the rustic sign post to hold it!
What’s one of the best visitor reactions to your set?
I had a man from London visit one Halloween and the cool night air came into our open garage doors so the alley had a brisk feel and we have antique street lights with candle light flickering and fog and the whole atmosphere was right out of an 18th century London city street. He was so excited, he couldn’t believe he was in a basement! He was “dazzled” to use his words! My husband loved that because he built the buildings to look exactly like Universals.
My own personal favorite reaction was a young girl who was an avid Potter fan. After taking the tour she said that this must be like reaching the top with a hobby one loves and she wished that someday she could have a display of a Potter destination in her home. She was quite right. I never thought I’d have this alley in my house. I love going down into this magical world and hanging out with friends or having a coffee with my husband and brainstorming about what we’ll do next! It’s really a Potter fans dream and I love sharing it with other fans.
What house would the Sorting Hat put you in?
I think you must know what Hogwarts house I would be sorted into! I love spooky stuff and I love the nefarious Knockturn Alley! Hogwarts students are not permitted to go there let alone buy anything. Dodgy place…”You don’t want to get caught down there-they might think you’re up to no good!” So–Slytherin of course!
If you’d like to see video, please follow this link to a WPRI 12 News story!
Images courtesy of Corinne Adams. Questions about anything you see here? Corinne is happy to answer them! Please email her at: thevampirechronicles13@gmail.com
Harry Potter is celebrating a birthday shortly, which is the only excuse we need to bust out our hats and robes and do something Potter. You might recall our 
The cookbook contains 10 chapters and 150 recipes. While a traditional cookbook organizes its recipes under chapters like main dishes, salads, and sides, the Unofficial Potter has chapters like “Recipes from a Giant and an Elf” (Rock Cakes, Bath Buns, Treacle Fudge, Kreacher’s French Onion Soup, etc.) and “Good Food with Bad Relatives” (Lemon Pops, Knickerbocker Glory, Roast Pork Loin, Mulligatawny Soup, etc.).
It didn’t take long before the use of our fingertips turned into the use of our full fingers (and some of our hands) in order to make sure we fully incorporated the butter into the dry ingredients.
After folding the egg and milk into butter mixture, we slowly mixed in the raisins. This was the only time we both grew concerned about the rock cakes. The batter seemed really thick and tough to mix. After a short while, my son didn’t have the strength to fold in the raisins so he passed the spoon over to me. Even I had a hard time making sure the raisins were fully mixed in!
We slid the cookie sheet into the oven for 25 minutes, turning the sheet once in the middle of the baking cycle. Once the rock cakes were lightly brown on the bottom, we pulled them out and set them on racks to cool. The next morning, Dr. Dana and Marissa’s office test confirmed…the recipe is a winner!
Rock cakes have the appearance and consistency of a scone, so they would be perfect as a morning treat with a cup of coffee or eaten in the afternoon with a spot of tea. My son and I brainstormed other filling options to use in place of raisins and we came up with dried fruits, such as cranberries, cherries or blueberries, chocolate chips, or perhaps just including a splash of vanilla extract to the dough. You could also skip adding anything and eat plain rock cakes with a pat of butter and glob of your favorite jam or jelly.
As I lined two baking sheets with parchment paper, my son measured and combined the water, sugar, and cream of tartar in a small pot. He asked for help with the corn syrup as it looked to him to be hard to measure correctly. I happily obliged to avoid a sticky syrupy mess. We followed the directions carefully, stirred the mixture constantly and used a candy thermometer once our concoction was bubbling. We watched the candy thermometer slowly rise in temperature, stirring every once in a while.
All was going well until the mixture reached a temperature of about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s when I noticed our whitish clear blend suddenly started turning brown.
There was also a distinguishable burning smell being emitted from the pot. I knew this was not good, but we decided to follow through until the mixture was at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, per the recipe. Once it hit that temperature, I turned off the burner and we added the citric acid. As soon as the mixture had cooled and stopped bubbling, we took turns dropping teaspoon sized circles of the candy onto the baking sheets.
Total fail. Acid drops are supposed to be yellow or yellowish-white, not dark brown almost black. The smell of the candies also reaffirmed what I already knew: the sugar had scorched and the candies were a bust. On a dare, Dr. Dana tried one of the burned candies. I think this image says it all.
Attempt #2. I consulted Google to find suggestions or ideas from others who have suffered similar fates with their candy. Apparently sugar is very easy to burn, so you have to be cautious when your mixture starts getting close to reaching 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Armed with this new information, I set forth to try again.
Not wanting to give up, I tried the recipe for a third time. Did I finally find success? Maybe.
The third candy attempt definitely had a yellow appearance, smelled like lemons, and hardened into round-ish discs. The acid drops were sour to the taste, but not overly sour like I had expected. What we didn’t anticipate was once we put the acid drops into our mouths, the candy adhered itself entirely to our teeth! It was quite alarming. Here are Dr. Dana and Ian captured at the very moment the acid drops adhered to their enamel like a vise:
My takeaway from trying to make acid drops is that I’m a baker, not a candy maker. I offer a round of applause to those who can make candy because, alas, it is proven that I cannot. I’ll officially hang up my candy maker hat and leave the job to Honeydukes.
My sous-chef squeezed the juice out of the zested lemon using our handy lemon/lime press, and then he added the sugar and water to the pan. After bringing the mixture to a simmer, we turned off the heat and added the lemon extract. We let the mixture cool down a bit before pouring it into our popsicle molds, then we placed the molds into the freezer.
Many hours later, we gave the lemon pops a taste. Delicious! The combination of the lemon zest, juice and extract along with the added sugar gave the lemon pops a nice sweet and sour flavor that almost tasted like limoncello liquor. But trust me when I say that these popsicles were absolutely alcohol free.
I won’t send you process photos because Katie’s stove is way cleaner than mine. But I will say that this recipe is straightforward, easy, and can be made in a single pot. The ingredients are sugar, unsweetened cocoa, cornstarch, milk, cream, butter, bittersweet chocolate, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Though simple, there is a bit of cooking magic involved in the final stove top stage – the recipe transfigures from a chocolate liquid to a thick, velvety pudding. Mmmmm.
How does the Unofficial Potter pudding taste? Awesome. The milk, cream, and butter in the recipe make it rich, but not too heavy. The consistency is great too. Very smooth and creamy. Ian had a taste and found the chocolate pudding to be quite…bedazzling.