Hogwarts Birthday Cake

This cake was for my daughter's sixth birthday. She tends to have very precise ideas of what she wants for her birthday cake. This year she wanted a cake that looked like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter series. We're reading the books together.

I had baked three sizes of strawberry cake. 5x8 inches, 3x5 inches and 4 inch round. Here is them stacked as I envisioned them to be.

 I had dyed the cake yellow and red to be for Gryffindor. I had five thin layers of 5x8 inch cake, 8 medium thick layers of 3x5 inch cake and six thick layers of 4 inch round cake with one of the cakes still with the dome.

 This is how I wanted to place them on the cake board.

 Then I stacked them with Swiss meringue buttercream as filling beginning with the 5x8inch cake, alternating colors.

 Then I stacked the first four layers of the 3x5 inch cake.

 Doweled it and added a cake board.

 Then stacked the rest of the cake.

 Then I stacked the first three layers of the four-inch round cake.

 Doweled it, added a cake board.

 And stacked the rest of the four-inch round cake with the domed cake on the top.

 Then I carefully carved the round tower into a point. This is supposed to be the astronomy tower.

 Then I carved the 3x5 inch cake to have a v-shaped top. This is meant to be the great hall.

 Now, I have a confession. This last cake is not meant to be a certain building from Hogwarts because the actual castle all has pitched roofs and I didn't have enough cake to make this building have a pitched roof. So, I improvised. This is just meant to keep with the general style of the buildings and continue the castle to give the impression of being very large.

 Then I frosted the great hall.

 As well as the astronomy tower and the third building.

 While the cake was chilling, I prepared the fondant colors. I began with the color for the walls. In looking at pictures, I noted that, while gray, the color had quite a bit of brown in it. So, I started with white and added three parts brown to one part black.

 It doesn't show up very well, but it was a light taupe.

 The next color was the color for the roofs. This one is gray with a touch of blue. So, I added nearly equal parts of black and blue to the white.

 The color was a very nice blue-gray.

 These are our two colors of fondant. They seem very castle-y to me.

 Then I rolled out the fondant and covered the sides of the cake in panels.

 Once all the sides were covered, I covered the roofs, allowing the fondant to overhang slightly.

 Next, I decided they needed more of a stone texture, so I pressed this brick impression mat into the sides and the roofs of the castle.

 It didn't show up very well. I would recommend texturing the fondant before putting it on the cake.

 Next, I made a couple small towers for the great hall. The first one was made with a medium thick piece of fondant wrapped around a wooden skewer and placed in the center of the roof.

 The other tower was similar, just thinner. Still wrapped around a skewer and pressed into the roof.

 Improvising again, I made square towers on the top of the 8x5 inch cake and added cones for the roofs.

 Then I added four small roofs around the center roofs.

 And another thin tower on the great hall as well as the astronomy tower.

 Next, I freehand cut out an entry way for the great hall.

 I also added strips of the color of the sides in 1/2 cm strips.

 And I made up an entryway into the rectangular hall.

 Then I added a few thick strips of fondant along the sides of the buildings.

 And a made-up entryway for the astronomy tower.

 As a final touch, I painted on windows and doors with black food coloring mixed with clear alcohol.

 But seriously? How amazing did this turn out?

 I might not look perfectly exactly like Howarts, but it's a good enough representation.

 I'm really proud of how this one turned out.

 I'm in love with the towers and windows.

 Plus the constantly changing textures of the round and square. I love it.

 My favorite thing was to look at the castle from the perspective of the figures of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Happy sixth Birthday, Sabrina!

Watch us make it on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/HtsT2ZjB4y0
Schaut zu wie wir es auf unserem YouTube Kanal machen hier: https://youtu.be/fkLuy9cq6WE