Happy 8th Birthday, Son #2!

Today is Son #2's birthday and that meant cake! He, of course, wanted a Harry Potter cake. The library does not have the Harry Potter cake pan (which is OK, because it's kind of lame) so he chose the open book pan. Over the week we brainstormed ideas about what kind of book it could be: a spell book, the Half-Blood Prince's potions textbook, etc. We finally decided that it would be fun to do the story within the story: Beedle the Bard's Tale of the Three Brothers from The Deathly Hallows. I was thinking I could make the book like an old illuminated manuscript--the question became how to do it in buttercream. I knew planning was involved so I made a life-size sketch to work out the word spacing and picture placement. Even so, you'll notice I had to leave off the title because I ended up enlarging the picture on the first page, and some words ended up taking up more space in frosting.
The cake itself is a quadruple vanilla cupcake recipe with the oil reduced by 1/4. This made for a fluffier cake that baked up nicely in 45 mins at 350. The icing is a single recipe of buttercream. But, at first I did not add any soy milk--this became the foundation icing for the pages. I wanted something thick and durable. I coloured about half of it with orange, yellow, and brown to make it look like aged paper. I spread it on and let it dry for 20 mins, then flattened the icing by pressing on it with a piece of parchment paper. I added some soy milk to the remaining icing for the text and pictures.
As for the pictures, I made cutouts of the figures and pressed them into the icing by gently pushing along the edges with a toothpick. I think this was a great method because it allows for fine detail and sharp edges. Basically I filled the depressions with icing (#1 tip again) which is easier than trying to keep a steady hand all the time.
The text icing is a mix of red and black and was piped on, letter by letter, with a #1 tip. I guess all that calligraphy as a kid paid off. The shading around the figures is done by thinning the colouring gel with vodka (a tip from one of my Facebook followers) and painting it one with a brush. I love this technique. The alcohol evaporates off and you get a wonderful watercolour effect. I also used this technique to colour in the brother standing at the back. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but his figure is depressed into the icing and has no buttercream. So you get a sense of depth in colour and in actual relief. I used a mix of blue, purple, and black.

The vines are moss green and piped on using a #3 tip. The page edges is the leftover moss green and blue shadow icing mixed together.
All in all, this was a very fun, but pretty hard, cake to make. I liked the artistic challenge of making something more original and it certainly got a lot of ooohs and aaahs from the neighbours we invited over to partake.

Treacle Tart

Behold, part two the Harry Potter party recipes! I have never had treacle tart in my life and so I had no idea what I was getting into when the boys requested this English favourite for their party. It took me two tries to get the recipe right. I started with this recipe. My first mistake was glossing over the part of the recipe that called for fresh bread crumbs. I thought it was a little weird that the tart filling would use bread crumbs but, after cracking a few jokes about English cuisine, I charged ahead with regular ol' dried bread crumbs. Quelle disaster. The tarts baked up so hard you could sand the floor with them. My second mistake was using water in the shortbread crust--that makes it bake up like concrete. I then checked out this recipe. I thought the proportion of syrup to bread crumbs looked better in this recipe, but was dubious that it would make enough filling to fill a 9" crust. So, after much trial and error, here is my recipe (and it was really tasty).

Shortcrust Pastry
INGREDIENTS
- 6¾ oz all purpose flour
- 3 oz icing sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 5½ oz cold Earth Balance margarine

METHOD
1. Sift flour, icing sugar, and salt into a bowl, then cut in margarine until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
2. Press 2/3rds of the mixture into a 9" pie pan, making about a 1" lip. Drizzle a few drops of oil over the remaining dough and press it into a ball. Wrap the dough ball in plastic, cover the pie plate in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 mins.
3. Preheat oven to 375. When crust has cooled, prick the bottom with a fork, line with aluminum foil, and fill with dried beans (or pie weights). Bake for 15- 17 mins, until just lightly golden. Remove beans (or weights) and parchment. If the bottom of the crust seems moist, return to the oven for 1-2 mins to dry out. Remove and let cool. Make the filling.

Filling
INGREDIENTS
- 270g golden syrup (I used Lyle's)
- 150 g fresh bread white bread crumbs (I pulsed bread slices in the food processor)
- grated rind and juice of one lemon

METHOD
1. Heat syrup in a saucepan over med-lo heat, until runny. Add breadcrumbs, lemon rind and juice, and mix well. Pour into cooled crust.
2. Roll out remaining crust in a lightly floured surface and make a lattice top. Protect pre-baked crust with foil, and bake for about 24 mins, until pastry is golden and filling is set. Serve warm.

I noticed that clotted cream is a popular addition to a slice of treacle tart. You could try this recipe. I did not have the required ingredients, so I whisked 1 tbsp of sugar into the cream scraped off the top of a can of coconut milk left in the fridge.

Butterbeer

Vegan Mom came up with the great idea to make New Year's Eve a Harry Potter Day for the kids. We played Potter-related games, watched The Goblet of Fire, and ate Potter-inspired food. The kids had a blast and so did I, though I have a lot more sympathy for the house elves now. When we solicited the kids for food ideas, butterbeer was at the top of the list. The Googles pointed me to a variety of recipes, all similar in that they mixed some kind of butterscotch flavour or syrup with soda (usually cream soda). The recipe posted on this blog looked the best to me, though perhaps is the most complicated. Of course, it needed the appropriate veganizations. Here is what I did:

INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 6 tablespoons Earth Balance margarine, cubed
- ½ teaspoon cider vinegar
- 1 can light coconut milk
- ½ teaspoon rum extract
- large bottle plain (i.e. not pink) cream soda (I used a 1.5 L of Fanta)

METHOD
1. Place brown sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture reads 240F on candy thermometer.
2. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, salt, vinegar and 1/4 cup of coconut milk. Set aside to cool to room temperature. When cool, mix in rum extract.
3. To serve: pour 2-3tbsp of the butterscotch mixture into the bottom of a small glass. Add in some cream soda and mix well. Top up with more cream soda. Then, pour about 2 tbsp of coconut milk down the back of a spoon on top.

VERDICT: This stuff will put you in a sugar coma in 2 seconds flat. The link above suggested using club soda, so you could try that. It's not exactly the warming beverage the books describe, but it's not bad. I did not use all the butterscotch syrup, but that's OK--it will be awesome over ice cream.

I also made pretzels that are supposed the be shaped like the deathly hallows symbol. Each pretzel is 3oz, brushed with some margarine after baking (450 for 15 mins), and sprinkled with a little kosher salt.