Wizarding Sweets and Confectionery

Wizarding sweets and confectionery are a diverse and popular category of food items in the magical world, notable for often possessing magical properties beyond their flavour. They are a significant part of the culture for young witches and wizards, serving as treats, practical jokes, and even magical remedies. Major retailers include the trolley on the Hogwarts Express and the famous Honeydukes sweetshop in the village of Hogsmeade. The range of sweets is vast, from the mundane to the bizarre and occasionally dangerous.

A wide variety of magical sweets are mentioned throughout the series, many of which have unique and surprising effects on the consumer.

These are some of the most common and iconic sweets available to Hogwarts students.

• Acid Pops: A lollipop mentioned to be able to burn a hole through the tongue. Fred Weasley once tricked his brother Ron Weasley into eating one when Ron was seven.
• Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans: One of the most famous wizarding sweets. These beans come in a vast array of flavours, encompassing everything from delicious tastes like chocolate and peppermint to disgusting ones such as tripe, earwax, bogey, and vomit. Albus Dumbledore claimed to have had an unfortunate encounter with a vomit-flavoured bean in his youth.
• Cauldron Cakes: A popular cake shaped like a small cauldron. Harry Potter bought them on his first trip on the Hogwarts Express.
• Chocolate Frogs: A confection made of chocolate shaped like a frog, which is enchanted to move and hop realistically. Each package contains a collectible Famous Witches and Wizards Card featuring a prominent magical figure. This is one of the first magical items Harry Potter encounters.
• Cockroach Clusters: A sweet shaped like a cockroach.
• Drooble's Best Blowing Gum: A brand of chewing gum which allows the chewer to blow large, bluebell-coloured bubbles that do not pop for days.
• Exploding Bonbons: Sweets that explode in the mouth, though they appear to cause no serious harm.
• Fizzing Whizzbees: Large sherbet balls that cause the eater to float a few inches off the ground.
• Ice Mice: Sweets that cause the consumer's teeth to chatter and squeak.
• Jelly Slugs: Gummy sweets shaped like slugs.
• Liquorice Wands: Wands made of liquorice, which are edible.
• Pepper Imps: Small, black sweets that allow the eater to smoke from their ears and nose, described as making one “breathe fire for your friends”.
• Pumpkin Pasties: A pastry filled with pumpkin, similar to a Cornish pasty. It is a common snack in the wizarding world.
• Sugar Quills: A quill made from solid sugar, which one can suck on during class. Hermione Granger viewed them with disapproval. They are available in a deluxe version that lasts longer.

Fred and George Weasley developed a line of joke sweets designed primarily to help students get out of class.

• Skiving Snackbox: A box containing a range of paired sweets. One half of the pair causes a specific ailment, while the other half provides the cure.
  • Fainting Fancies: Causes the eater to faint.
  • Fever Fudge: Induces a high fever.
  • Nosebleed Nougat: Causes a violent nosebleed.
  • Puking Pastilles: Causes the eater to vomit.
• Ton-Tongue Toffee: A toffee that is enchanted to make the consumer's tongue swell to an enormous size. The Weasley twins “accidentally” dropped one for Dudley Dursley to find, with dramatic results.
• Canary Creams: A type of custard cream that temporarily transfigures the eater into a large canary. After a minute, the person moults their feathers and returns to normal. Neville Longbottom fell victim to one in his fourth year.

• Blood-flavoured Lollipops: Sweets sold at Honeydukes, noted to be enjoyed by vampires.
• Chocolate: While also a Muggle treat, chocolate in the wizarding world is confirmed to be an effective and widely-used remedy for the chilling effects of proximity to a Dementor. Professor Lupin gives some to Harry Potter on the Hogwarts Express, and Madam Pomfrey uses it as a standard treatment.

Sweets play a multifaceted role in the series. For Harry, they are one of his first introductions to the wonder and whimsy of the magical world, representing a stark contrast to his deprived life with the Dursleys. His act of buying the entire sweet trolley on his first journey to Hogwarts is a key moment in establishing his friendship with Ron Weasley. Beyond being simple treats, many sweets function as minor plot devices. The Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products are central to Fred and George's character development and their eventual career path. The Ton-Tongue Toffee incident creates conflict with the Dursleys, while the Skiving Snackboxes are a source of constant trouble for Dolores Umbridge. The remedial properties of chocolate against Dementors are also a crucial piece of magical knowledge.

• Many of the sweets described in the books, such as Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and Chocolate Frogs, have been produced and sold as real-world merchandise, particularly in connection with the Warner Bros. Studio Tour and Universal theme parks. (Pottermore, merchandise)
• The films visually depicted many of the sweets with colourful and whimsical packaging, especially in the Hogwarts Express trolley and Honeydukes scenes, cementing their iconic status in the franchise. (film)