Still working my way through last years cakes, and we’ve made it to DLT1. She was well into reading the Harry Potter series of books, and was a huge fan. So her choice of party theme was a no brainer! Once again, I looked all over the internet for inspiring photos, and once again I was amazed at the talent and imagination of people out there.

I wanted to try my hand at making little fondant people again – I definitely needed more practice after my incredible shrinking pirate! It was a pretty slow and painstaking process, but layer by layer, Harry, Hermione and Ron all started to take shape.

I also had a crack at making Hedwig the owl, a sorting hat, a tiny flying snitch, and a book and wand. I got the colouring wrong for Hedwig’s eyes and beak, but I don’t think the kids noticed! And at the last moment I realised Harry wasn’t wearing glasses – couldn’t have that now could we!!

I decided on a two tier cake {aaah, that reminds me of a 2011 cake I made for Hubs’ 40th. I’ll have to share that later – very funny story there about my first ever attempt at a tiered cake. And four tiers no less!}. The upper tier I covered in fondant, though not my best effort. I didn’t let the cold cake come to room temperature before covering it, and it went all damp and sticky. Not a good look. But luckily I’d made it a marbled shade of grey to make it look a bit like stone. And I pressed little stone shapes into it, so I managed to disguise my mistake fairly well!

The bottom tier was also supposed to be covered in fondant. I was going to do maroon and gold stripes like the Gryffindor school tie. But I was a bit over fondant by that stage, so just used chocolate frosting, and little golden fondant stars. Have you ever tried to mix a maroon colour? Holy cow, I had such a lot of trouble getting it right, I’m so glad I only ended up having to mix a little bit for the school uniforms!