Often, we will end up getting off at a tube station and realize that we had been there before. Such was the case today as we walked through the streets and suddenly realized we had been on this very street when we had come to see Aladdin. Our journey today took us to a bakery in Soho where we attended a potion making class 

The bakery: Cutters & Squidge is pretty unassuming. It's got a big orange awning and is situated right next door to an adult shop. The only reason we found ourselves at this particular location is because of a tip from someone at our Airbnb to check out the "secret London" Facebook group for things to do. Here I found the announcement to the recently opened "potion making experience" at Cutters & Squidge. Since we weren't able to go to Leavesden to see the Warner Brothers studio again, this would be a nice runner up experience.

After a short wait we were escorted down a flight of stairs where we donned our school robes. Now understand, we didn't really know what to expect. I may have bought the tickets not knowing what the heck was in store for us. I knew vaguely there would be some food, and a bit of tea... But that was about it. What we walked into was a bit of a surprise...

In the "classroom" were multiple rows of wooden desks all lined up. Each desk had a few beakers of differently colored liquid along with a few other "potion making" related items.

The rest of the classroom was decked out from top to bottom with various magical decorations. The only odd bit was the classical music being played as background music. It didn't really fit the room and slightly detracted the experience... I'm guessing this was to get around being sued as there was pointedly no mention of anything Harry Potter related.

The teacher really went all out during our class. She walked us through making our first "potion" with much pageantry and wand waving. Having followed all of the directions, she walked throughout the classroom remarking on what an excellent job everyone had done on their very first potion. We all quickly gulped our potions down, and as luck would have it, it was quite sweet.

We then worked on a potion that somehow loosely had something to do with saving owls... I can't recall the specifics, but when we were instructed to eat this potion my mouth exploded from the sweetness of it. Sweetness overdrive! Amanda said she really enjoyed it *shrug*

I forgot to mention that when we arrived we had to fill out a report of sorts which ended up dictating the type of tea we would be having. I chose the "elixer of life" while Amanda went down the ole "unicorn tear tea" route. Everyone's tea was delivered to them in their own teapot dedicated to their tea of choice. This was promptly followed up with towers of food being delivered in what looked to be repurposed owl cages. Eating Time!

I'm not a huge tea fan, but I've got to say that the elixer of life beats the unicorn tears every time. I'm sorry, these are just the facts everybody. As for the food, I was really surprised with how much each person was given. I was worried that I might not be able to make it to dessert, but continued to soldier on.

Partway through our food journey a delivery was made. Each person was handed a warm rolled up bag with a sign saying to "eat the rock cakes before they got hard". Inside was two of the most delicious freshly baked rock cakes I have ever eaten. Honestly... I would have eaten an entire meal consisting of just those rock cakes *cough* scones *cough*.

Having demolished every bit of delicious food we were left with a final surprise. A cart was wheeled out containing all sorts of further desserts so that we could take them home. With a bit of a whimper (Amanda was excited about it) we received some slices of cake and pumpkin pasties, all of which we managed to eat that very night.

Next we head to Kensington Palace and the day after that we are going to the Churchill War Rooms. Bogert's out.