One of the greatest things for my kitchen but worst for my bank account is the sale section at work. While the sale is going on I almost always end up buying something every week. A few weeks ago a cake pan went on sale that I just had to have. It was crazy; this pan was 12 inches in diameter. What would I ever need a 12in pan for? Do you know how big of a cake that is? It's ridiculous. But it was on sale, so I had to have it. Lis and I decided that the best way to christen the cake pan would be to use it for our upcoming Harry Potter marathon. Oh yes, marathon. We watched all 8 movies IN A ROW. It took from 6:30 in the morning to 2 am the following morning. But it was totally worth it and now I can say I've done it and never do it again. Anyway, back to cake...
This picture is to just give you all an idea of just how much goes into a large cake. (Seriously, how do bakeries source this stuff?) For two layers of cake we needed 10 eggs, 5 cups of sugar, 10 cups of flour, 5 cups of milk and 5 sticks of butter. Our cake was four layers in the end, so you do the math.
Having fun with the food colouring.
It took us about 6 hours to make all the layers. Each one represents one of the Hogwarts houses. And since it was such an enormous cake and the icing alone contributed upwards of 9 cups of powdered sugar, we didn't think it needed much more decoration. But it did need something, so I set to work.
I used modeling chocolate to make the snitch and the letters. It's really easy to work with, tastes better than fondant and is pretty sturdy.
And here's the final product! I used food gels instead of normal food colouring because you can get a much truer and more nuanced colour. They cost more but are totally worth it. And now you can see why we chose to do a white frosting instead of chocolate. The white just sets off the layers so nicely.
We waited to cut into it until the last movie. Even one thin slice was overkill at that point and I don't think any of us finished our pieces. And since the cake was so big I still have about half of it sitting in our kitchen waiting for someone to come along and devour it. I'm very proud of the way it turned out and hope that if anyone wants to show off at their next movie marathon they will consider doing the same.
Cheers!
We waited to cut into it until the last movie. Even one thin slice was overkill at that point and I don't think any of us finished our pieces. And since the cake was so big I still have about half of it sitting in our kitchen waiting for someone to come along and devour it. I'm very proud of the way it turned out and hope that if anyone wants to show off at their next movie marathon they will consider doing the same.
Cheers!
RSS Feed
