I love a comforting, home cooked meal on a crisp, cool evening. If my children ate said meal without so much as a single complaint – well, that would be magic. Perhaps with a little inventive twist from this spellbinding cookbook, that may just be possible.

The Harry Potter franchise has inspired a glut of spin-off products, and this has to be one of the most useful. If the Harry Potter novels made your stomach grumble, leafing through the pages of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook may have much the same effect as it arms with you more than one hundred and fifty recipes inspired by the seven books in the series.

Sweet tooths might head straight for Harry’s favourite treat, Treacle Tart, or one of the delectable offerings on the Hogwarts Express cart - Pumpkin Pasties. But if you’re more partial to the traditional, hearty British fare which appears frequently throughout the books, Kreacher’s French Onion Soup, or Molly’s Meat Pies will get you salivating. For keen food buffs, each recipe is coupled with a short description of that dish in British culinary history.

The book’s author, American Dinah Bucholz is a self-confessed Harry Potter tragic and food lover, so combining the two was elementary. She’s currently working on a similar concept with recipes from children’s classic The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook is available through The Book Depository for about $19.95.