It was my bosses birthday last week, and I knew I wanted to bake him a cake. He and I share a minor (major) love for Harry Potter, so I got to thinking.WHAT IF.....we all had Horcruxes? Not like "He who must not be named" in the sense of evil...but little seemingly worthless items that represented something near and dear to us. Tiny insignificant significant symbols that could be a 'pocket collection' of major things in our lives. I was onto something. WHAT IF I found out what some of these were, and BAKED them into a cake? Taking a cue from the famous 'King Cake'???? Would it work?
As I was walking out of the office one night, I casually posed the question to my boss, "If you were to have Horcruxes, what would they be?"
He bit right on my trap, and proceeded to rattle off 4 right then and there. I repeated them over and over in my head until I got in my car, and furiously typed them into an email to my coworker while sitting in my car (9 degrees out, thank you very much!) He arrived at work the next day, and happily forked over two more for me to consider. Since I couldn't FIND these actual items, I did the next best thing and googled them and printed their images off on card stock. I found these nifty little 'jars' at Meijer in the travel shampoo section and I was set! Each Horcrux was neatly folded into a jar. Now, how to incorporate them into the cake??!!??
I made a double layer white cake (secret ingredient, buttermilk) with traditional buttercream frosting. I used food coloring, and swirled the batter once it was in the cake pans, to add a fun element of whimsy. I decided against baking plastic INTO the cake- I had no idea if the things I got would melt...and frankly, no time to test it.
One other new experience was the use of Fondant. I bought a box, opened it up, and there was this white, plasticky brick of edible goop? I read the directions, thought about what I wanted to make and went for it. I rolled vanilla into it, along with the food coloring, and basically molded it by hand into.... Harry's Broomstick! I think it's cute. I also made a Lightning Bolt, too.
It was getting late, so I had to limit my creativity. I placed the Horcruxes around the bottom of the cake, and piped red (it turned out quite pink) frosting around and over top of them.
As usual, my abilities are no match for my dreams. The cake looks like a child made it, but I don't care. I think the cake turned out delicious and the idea, Horcruxes and all, was a hit.
(I also only made 6 for him, forgetting that V had seven)
I also made a Birthday card out of the Marauder's Map, thanks to my friend Melissa over at Cake Hero!! She was kind enough to share her awesome file with me. She had an amazing Harry Potter party that you can check out HERE.
Charley was not interested in helping me make this cake, not after a fun day at DayCamp...instead my Sous Chef for this project was sweet, little Dakota.
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