Harry Potter Party: The Food

I still have a few components of the Harry Potter party I wanted to share, so I better get busy on writing about it before its Lance's birthday again!

First off - the cake! At first I was very concerned over what to do about the cake, as I like to bake tasty cakes, not pretty cakes. I'm not very artsy.  Then, while researching party ideas, I stumbled across Hagrid's birthday cake for Harry, and I thought perfect!! It really didn't matter what it ended up looking like - I mean, a half-giant did sit on the thing, ya know... its supposed to be ugly!  This is the perfect Harry Potter cake to make if you lack artistic skills as I do :)  I took the cake a step further and made it magic! You'll see :)

I used cake mix and frosting out of the can. So sue me.  In order to do what I wanted, I made it a four layer cake. In hindsight, three  was plenty and would have made life SO much easier.  Oh well.  I left two layers untouched for the top and bottom, and cut the middles out of the other two - one larger than the other.  I'd recommend just using three layers and make one with a hole.  Its a pain in the arse otherwise.

Frost the bottom layer, then place your holey middle layer on top. 

Have your favorite witch or wizard help you with this step, as here is the magic! 

Fill it up with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans!  I got the awesome idea from here :)

This is where I went wrong with my ambitiousness.  I wanted LOTS of magic jelly beans to spew out, hence the four layers, but it proved to be a lot of stress for the cake. Plus the kids had a blast with the jelly beans, but didn't eat nearly what I thought they would.  I had to support my Leaning Tower of Cake with some lollipop sticks.

And it looked a little something like this. Yes, the picture is blurry. Thats what happens when you are stressed at 3am making a magic cake and drinking magic wine, hehe

I know I took a picture of the whole cake before the party, but I think I may have lost it when my computer died.  It turned out pretty cute in the "I made it with a pink umbrella wand" sort of way, so perfection doesn't count here.  I piped on "Happee Birthdae Lance" with green icing, and they all got a kick out of it.  

Especially the few grownups who stuck around :)

The other thing I made was owl crispy pops! This is a Pinterest find, and originally found here.

I didn't have the right sized cookie cutter or anything that would work, until Alex suggested that I look at our Play-Doh cutters.  Brilliant! Unfortunately, there was nothing there either, but as you can see, I was able to make do :)

Get your house elf to work...

And you'll have your very own (edible) owlery!  The "stand" is just a shoe box I spray painted.

Here is the super simple recipe borrowed from the Cookies and Cups blog.  Head on over there to see detailed pictures of the process (as well as a spider version!)

I found this at Target in the Halloween section, and I just could not pass this up! Pick one of this up ASAP if you are planning your own Harry Potter party later in the year!

Simply put the powder in the cauldron, put in a 2-liter of Ginger Ale in, and watch it fizzle and ooze all over the place.  This was our Polyjuice potion (served in plastic wine cups from the Dollar Tree)

We had a "Honeydukes" section next to our "Diagon Alley," and I printed these favor bags using Pages (Apple's version of Word) and ordinary paper lunch bags.  Super cheap and resourceful :)

At Honeydukes, you can find another idea from Pinterest - Dementor chocolate!

And Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans!

And Pumpkin Pasties! I was so excited to find these Little Debbie pumpkin treats and had to buy a few boxes.   Another whirl with the computer, Google Images, and my printer, and I'm done!