Cooking Review: Hocus Pocus: The Official Cookbook

July 11, 2023

by Emma Smith, Assistant Editor

Would you like to whip up some Sanderson Sisters spooky recipes this Halloween? Thanks to Hocus Pocus: The Official Cookbook from Insight Editions, you can. The book combines recipes from Elena Craig and T. Bende and photographs from Ted Thomas to bring you tongue in cheek recipes inspired by the movie and its three stars.

The Recipes

The cookbook contains 70 recipes, fairly evenly divided between appetizers, main dishes, desserts, and drinks. All have a decidedly creepy and kooky twist, using food to create zombie fingers, rat loaf, and cat tongue cookies, just to name a few. The authors clearly had fun figuring out how to infuse each recipe with the weird.

On a culinary level, the recipes are not from one particular cuisine, as the book includes pretzels, tacos, meat loaf, and risotto. Overall, it leans more toward European-American cuisine. They tend toward easy to medium difficulty in terms of preparation, with a handful of more challenging techniques, like pastry and risotto.

The Pictures

Most of the recipes in the book include full page photographs of the dishes. The photographs are particularly helpful here, where the recipes double as art projects. My only complaint is that in a few places, the efforts to make the end result “creepy” ended up making it look a tad bit unappetizing.

The Hocus Pocus Tie-In

In addition to the photographs, the book contains illustrations of Winifred, Sarah, and Mary, as well as various witchy accompaniments. The illustrations are truly standout, cute as Hades and evocative of the 1993 movie and the leads’ expressive faces. Every recipe includes an introduction specifying what part of the movie inspired it.

Our Evaluation

This cookbook is great for anyone putting together a Halloween party or other spooky themed gathering. I also think it would be great for parents to use as a fun way to introduce cooking to kids, as the “grossness” of some of the recipes is likely to appeal. However, the additional effort required to create the visual effect of the recipes and the mishmash of types of food means it will likely not be one a cook would reach for on a regular basis.