You're a wizard Harry!

A couple of weeks ago it was my boyfriend's 20th birthday and being a huuuuge Harry Potter fan I decided to bake a cake for him dedicated to the film franchise. I came up with the idea when we visited the Harry Potter studio tour over the summer. They had a section devoted to the food featured in the films, including the feast at the Yule Ball and of course, Harry himself's first ever birthday cake, given to him by Hagrid in the first film. I can remember how delicious I thought the cake looked when I first watched the film and wanted to replicate it as accurately as possible - spelling mistakes and all.

After tracking down a photo of the cake on Google, I went about making a simple sponge mix and making 2 cakes, carefully cutting the top off one and sandwiching them together the make the cake higher, like it is in the film. Next I made copious amounts of butter icing, and coloured one lot a light pink and the other a bright green. Once the cake had cooled, I used a palette knife to spread the pink icing generously all over the top and sides of the cake. I then gently traced the letters onto the cake with a sharp knife (replacing the Harry for Louis of course!). I then used a home made icing bag to ice on the letters in green icing, it didn't matter if they were messy because Hagrid's cake is a bit rough around the edges!

I was really happy with the outcome and think that it is quite an accurate replica. I was hoping that Louis would get the reference and not just think I had made him a bit of a messy cake with spelling mistakes! It went down a storm, and tasted delicious too.

For a simple sponge recipe, I always follow using half the amount of ingredients as you do eggs. For example for this cake I used:
6 eggs
12oz softened salted butter
12oz caster sugar
12oz self raising flower

A picture of the cake from the film on the left and the cake I made on the right

Harry receiving his cake from Hagrid in the Philospher's Stone 

Yule Ball drinks at Harry Potter sudios