We Finally Started Reading the Harry Potter Series!

My kids and I just started doing one of the activities that I basically had kids for, one that when I was a kid myself always said “when I grow up I can’t wait to do________with my own kids” (fill in the blank). We have begun reading the Harry Potter series together.

If you’re a die-hard Potter fan like myself then you know how monumental this is. And if you’re not? You’re missing out because they’re incredible. Sidenote—my husband isn’t a Potter fan, he just doesn’t quite get it yet. This fact is also a slight annoyance in our marriage. But he also just hasn’t been introduced to it like I have, and I’m working on converting him. I know there’s going to come a day when he wakes up and smells the butterbeer.

My kids on the other hand? I’m proud to say they’re obsessed! We just finished Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and our plan is to watch each movie once we finish with a book. If you know anything about our family we don’t just have Family Movie Night, we do it with a bang—complete with a yummy dinner prior and decadent dessert during. It’s one of our favorite nights in our house and we all look forward to it weekly. Ours happens on Friday. What day is your family’s movie night and do you have any special activities you do together? Let me know in the comments!

Picking a Special Dessert for this Special Movie Night

I knew right away what the dessert had to be for Book 1: Harry’s Birthday Cake that Hagrid bakes him of course! I had decided that right from the day we read that page, and knew my kids would get a kick out of seeing the cake they were eating played out on the screen. Spoiler: they diddd!!

On the week we had planned to watch the movie my girls had Literacy Night at their school where they celebrated the magic of reading through games and activities corresponding to different book themes. One of those most famous themes? The Harry Potter franchise! They had gift baskets being raffled from different books, and when my girls saw the Harry Potter basket they just about lost their Every Flavor Jelly Beans. It cost me $23 in raffle tickets that night, but they won the basket! That was such a fun night and treasured memory so the cost was worth every penny because their smiles and excitement made it all worth it!

One of the treasures inside this basket was The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz. When I saw the cover I had a feeling the birthday cake recipe would be inside, and sure enough it was! Prior to Literacy Night I was planning on using boxed cake mix to make baking it quick and easy, but spoiler alert, the cake from the book was amazing and so worth the effort. I was so glad I didn’t use a box, and it was fun to bake together with my daughters since it’s a Harry Potter recipe.

If you want to recreate this cake for your Harry Potter movie nights and celebrations, I’m including the full recipe below.

Tips for Making the Cake

Some recipe notes though: the cake and chocolate glaze were amazing. The cake calls for a chocolate glaze that’s really more of a thick fudge (that I quite literally ate with a spoon because it’s so delicious). I used this glaze as the filling and a vanilla buttercream as the frosting. The original recipe uses the glaze on the outside and frosting on the inside. The point of me telling you this is to show you that you could do it either way. If you like a fudgy cake use the glaze inside. If you like a frosting filled cake use the frosting inside.

I didn’t use their buttercream recipe because it’s chocolate but pink in the movie (though I’m a skilled baker and can tell this is a great chocolate frosting). It’s hard to dye a chocolate buttercream pink so I just made a quick vanilla buttercream and dyed it pink, with a tiny bit of it green for the letters. I can’t stress not skipping this step if you want it to be accurate because your kids will also get a kick out of it when they watch the movie. I did include the original chocolate recipe below though if you want it to be accurate to the book.

Remember to Be Sloppy!

Another note—the cake recipe asks for 1 teaspoon instant coffee but I only did ½ teaspoon in my cake because I felt that 1 teaspoon would overpower it. I could still barely just taste the coffee at ½ teaspoon. Don’t skip the coffee completely though because it brings out the chocolate flavor in the cake! Don’t also forget the additional Hagrid touches of being sloppy, misspelling the writing, and the crack from where he sat on it (directions also included below).

The other best part about this cake besides the fact that it’s truly delicious? It’s so easy to decorate since it’s supposed to be messy! Remember Hagrid made this cake so it’s supposed to be sloppy!

The Recipe

I’ve included the recipe as well as a link to the recipe book here if you’d like to try out more Harry Potter recipes. Happy Harry Potter celebrations fellow muggles!

Cake Recipe (Adapted from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz)

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake Ingredients

¾ cup boiling water

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon instant coffee

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed dark brown sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze

8 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate

¾ cup heavy cream

¼ stick (2 tablespoons) butter

¼ cup corn syrup

Chocolate Frosting

1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tablespoon heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ of the Chocolate Glaze from above

(Or if wanting to make this accurate to the movie replace the chocolate frosting with vanilla dyed pink for the whole cake and green for lettering)

Directions:

1. To make the cake preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8-inch round pans and line with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together boiling water, cocoa powder, and instant coffee in small bowl; set aside. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. In another bowl beat together butter, sugar and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix after each addition. Add vanilla extract and the hot cocoa mixture and beat until combined. Add flour and stir until just well combined.
4. Divide batter into prepared pans and bake about 20 pans, until a toothpick comes out clean in the center. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan and then transfer to wire rack to continue cooling.
5. While cake is cooling, make the glaze: Place the chocolate, heavy cream, butter, and corn syrup in a large microwave safe bowl and heat for about 1-2 minutes, stirring halfway. Whisk until smooth. Cool until the glaze is thick but still pourable.
6. To prepare the frosting: Mix the butter, confectioner’s sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about 5-7 minutes. Add half the chocolate glaze and beat until combined.
7. If using your own buttercream dye most of it pink and about ¼ cup green. Place green frosting in a ziploc bag with a small corner snipped off to pipe letters (an easy baking hack if you don’t have baking equipment and/or don’t want to wash a ton of dishes).
8. To assemble cake: Place one cake round on a plate. Top with either chocolate glaze or frosting. Place second cake round on top. Cover with either glaze or frosting sloppily as Hagrid decorated this cake himself. The handwriting should be sloppy as well.
9. To write on the cake: Hagrid doesn’t know how to spell. He writes “Happee Birthdae Harry”. Don’t forget to put a crack in the cake where Hagrid sat on it—start from the top between the letters P and E in ‘Happee’ down to H and D in ‘Birthdae’ and down between H and A in ‘Harry”.

 

 

 

*Denotes affiliate link. Please see terms and conditions for more information about affiliate links.