Harry Potter Birthday Cakepocalipse

Mode: Massive Multiplayer Office Game
Hardware: Pretty much every piece of cutlery, tray, and bowl in my kitchen.
Accessories: Joy and wonder.

So as you may know, it's customary at my office to provide cakes for your co-worker when it is your own birthday. Because I'm a massive show-off, each year I get as many of my family members over as possible for a weekend of family fun and then ask them to help me make a metric FUCK TON of cakes. Cakes designed by me.

Why the Harry Potter theme? Well the LEGO Harry Potter series is currently being worked on by a lot of my hardworking peers who have been doing much overtime (holla!) But also there's the fact that I thought there's kind of a lot to work with, thematically speaking.

So it all begins with a shit load of cake mix. The foundation for pretty much everything here. Butter, flour, eggs, sugar.

I made 4 kinds of cupcakes, using my cupcake maker. The cupcakes are going to be themed around spells...

Yellow flavoured with lemon juice, Blue flavoured with Peppermint essence, Green flavoured with vanilla essence, and red flavoured with fresh carrot, cinnamon and chili powder.

 

For the centerpiece cake, Mum (codename pending?) worked on a large tray of chocolate brownie, and two vanilla sponge cakes made in curved bowls, in order to fit them together to create a cauldron shaped cake.

 

The chocolate tray portion is decorated with melted chocolate to look like a wooden desk.

 

 

With some fondant icing (which just happened to be blue for some reason) the cauldron is shaped over the 'ball' of spongecake.

 

...and painted black with some black food colouring. painting it instead of dyeing it means it could have a sort of 'glazed' look that actually makes it look a bit like cast iron. We also pressed in chocolate chips for rivets, and plaited licorice laces into a matching handle.

For these battenburg type sponge cakes, there would be one for each of the Hogwarts houses, with a matching colour scheme and appropriate flavour combination. Lime and coconut for Slytherin, blueberry and coffee for Ravenclaw, banana and chocolate for Hufflepuff, and strawberry and orange for Griffindor. I used whatever I could find for flavouring. Some were cordials, some were fresh fruits, as well as cocoa and coconut milk, etc.

 

When the cakes were baked, we cut them into strips and alternated them, rebuilding a cake and sealing them together with an appropriate flavoured jam and coating them in an appropriate coating.

Honey and marzipan for Griffindor, lime jam and coconut for Slytherin,  nutella and chocolate icing for Hufflepuff, and bramble jelly and coffee glazed marzipan for Ravenclaw.

 The final job before transporting was to ice the cupcakes. 3 of them were made with buttercream icing, flavoured to match the cupcake, but the green ones were topped with lime jelly.
 

 

My sister had a recipe she likes to use, where she makes edible shards that look like broken glass out of melting down boiled sweets or sugar. I used these to decorate the blue cupcakes. I also had various sprinkles and some edible glitter handy.

I don't seem to have any pictures of the cookies we baked, but I also made sugar cookies out of a big log of cookie dough which we cut in half really zig-zaggy, added some food dyes, and re-assembled and sliced into cookies and baked.

While me, my mum and my sister did all this, Ben H wrote down the display cards for each cake in calligraphic handwriting, for that authentic wizardy-feel. I'm not sure why wizards hate computers, but they do. Except for installation wizards.

Phew! That was 2 days of work, but don't worry we went out for dinner and a cinema trip to relax in the evenings. Cowboys and Aliens was pretty decent.

The next day we drove all the cakes down the road to the office, and badgered a couple people into helping me carry them up the stairs. But we're not just finished yet!.

I had to arrange ingredients in the cauldron cake, add pocky wands to the 'spells' and slice the battenburgs.

...

Okay, NOW It's done. Here you go, guys. I'll type out what it said on the display cards.

CAULDRON CAKE

Indulge yourself with a slice of thick CHOCOLATE BROWNIE wizard's desk with DARK AND MILK CHOCOLATE coating.

Or take a chunk out of the Cauldron itself, made from VANILLA SPONGE and FONDANT ICING joined with NUTELLA

Or just pinch some INGREDIENTS

GRIFFINDOR

If you are the bravest sort, you will have to try some STRAWBERRY and ORANGE&MANGO sponge joined with HONEY and coated in MARZIPAN.

RAVENCLAW

 If wit beyond measure is your greatest treasure, perk up with some COFFEE and FRESH BLUEBERRY sponge joined with BRAMBLE JELLY and coated in MARZIPAN.

HUFFLEPUFF

 If you're warm of heart and quite loyal to chocolate, have a big slice of CHOCOLATE and BANANA sponge joined with NUTELLA and coated with CHOCOLATE FONDANT.

SLYTHERIN

If you're the devious sort with unusual taste, try LIME and COCONUT sponge, joined with LEMON AND LIME JELLY and iced with DESSICATED COCONUT

(Dairy Free)

LUMOS

 If your workspace is dark and needs illumination, try a LEMON flavoured spell with LEMON BUTTERCREAM ICING

REPARO

If you're feeling broken down, fix yourself a PEPPERMINT SPELL with PEPPERMINT BUTTERCREAM ICING and PEPPERMINT SUGAR SHARDS

INCENDIO

If you're a little under the weather, heat up with a spicy CARROT AND CINNAMON CAKE with a hint of CHILI, coated with NON-DAIRY CINNAMON ICING

(Dairy Free)

STUPEFY

Dare to be stupid? Plunge headfirst into a VANILLA SPONGE and LIME JELLY spell. 

(Not suitable for vegetarians!)

CRUCIATUS COOKIES

Post-mortem: ***** TEN POINTS TO RED VALKYRIE HOUSE.