Harry Potter Baby Shower Cake & Cookie - Welcome Muggle Baby

I learned a new term recently: A Sprinkle.  It is like a baby shower only smaller and usually for a second child.  Who knew.  This is a Harry Potter cake I made for the Sprinkle - Welcome Muggle Baby!

I made some cookies too.  I suck at cookie decorating.  I use glaze instead of royal icing so I always blame the thin, watery glaze for my sloppy technique.

And like all of my recent cakes I went a little overboard using my 3D printer to make cutters and embossers.  I could have cut a lot of these things by hand (like the envelope and shield), but making the cutters is a lot more fun.  You can read my post on using a 3D printer to make cookie cutters HERE.

<< Disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to ear fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.>>

Here is the shield going together.  I made a cutter that created the outer edge, and used that same cutter to make the sections in red, green, yellow and blue fondant.  I had an embosser for each of the animals, and an "H" embosser for the center of the shield.  After everything was  dry, I painted the edge with silver food paint, and dusted everything with brown and black food color power.

The wizard wand I made from a bamboo skewer wrapped in fondant hardened with Tylose/Gum-Tex power.  After it dried I painted it with brown food color and dusted it with more brown and black power.

For the book I started with a rectangle of thick brown fondant (mixed with lots of Tylose), and then made super thin "pages" out of gum paste.   

On the top page of the book I printed a newspaper looking image and the words "Welcome Muggle Baby" on some wafer paper.  Then I dampened the wafer paper and stuck it to the dry gum paste.

For the envelope I used my cutter which placed score lines where the flaps needed to be folded.  

Once the folded envelope was dry I dusted it to give it the aged look.  I don't show it here but for the red "wax" seal on the envelope I just stuck a wad of red fondant to the envelope and pressed and "H" embosser into it.

The sorting hat was by far the hardest part to make.  I started with a cone shaped wad of aluminum foil and added fondant to form the protrusion in the face.

I then rolled out a piece of thin fondant and wrapped it around the entire piece.  I added bits of fondant here and there, trying to match the features on the hat from the movie.  My fondant started to dry very quickly (too much Tylose I guess), so it started to looks cracked and wrinkled.  Good thing that was the look I was going for.

Next I added the brim.  Later I thought the brim looked too narrow, so I made another and stacked it on top of the original brim.

Final step was a dusting of (you guessed it) black and brown food color power.  I put lots of black dust in the eye sockets and mouth.  You can also see the hat has a larger brim in this picture.  If you look really hard you can see where the top wider brim is folding over the narrow brim underneath. 

For the golden snitch I made some cutters for the wings, and I used a plastic baseball mold for the ball of the snitch.   I used an extruder to make the thin ropes of fondant and then glued them to the ball to approximate the pattern on the snitch.  

I let everything dry in the shape I wanted.

And then I painted everything with gold luster dust mixed with Everclean.  Once the gold was dry I dusted with black and brown food color power to give it an aged look.

Putting the cake together was really easy because 90% of it was made before hand.  After frosting the cake (American Buttercream tinted with Ivory food gel), I rolled out yellow and red fondant, pressed a knit-looking impression matt into the fondant, and then cut strips using a 5 roller pastry cutter. 

Then it was just a matter of placing the strips on the cake in an alternating red and yellow pattern.

Once the strips were in place (and dusted with brown and black), I simply placed all the items I had made earlier onto their assigned locations.  To get the splatter look on the buttercream, I thinned down some buttercream with milk, and then using a wadded up piece of plastic wrap I dabbed the thinned buttercream onto the cake.  The technique gives a nice stippled pattern.  

So here is the finished cake, what do you think?  Happy Sprinkle, Muggle Baby.  My the force be with you.  (oops that's a different movie, right??)

Happy Decorating,

Carol