The Harry Potter Sorting Hat Cake

The Sorting Hat Cake was made for my friend's daughter's 10th Birthday. She is off to the opening day of Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince for her Birthday. Several people on flickr asked me how I did it. So here goes the explaination.

1. Make a vanilla sponge with 1 1/2 lb each of Butter, Caster Sugar, Self Raising Four, 1 dozen large eggs, 6 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 1 tsp of baking powder. Divide between 2x 6 inch tins, 1x 7 inch tins, 2x 9 inch tins. Bake at 180 degrees C. Once cooked, turn out onto a wire rack upside down and allow to cool completely before turning them over onto a flat surface and trimming them flat.

2. Kneed 10g of Gum Traganath powder into 2kg of Regal Ice fondant. Then colour with a mixture of chestnut and dark brown gel colours. Aim for an old tan leather colour. Wrap and allow to stand.

3. Make butter cream with 750g butter, 1.5kg icing sugar, 3 tabelspoons of cream (or more if it is too thick), and 3 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

4. On a 9 inch temporary cake board stack the cakes into a tapering tower, sandwiching them with buttercream. Chill them for around 30 minutes.

5. Carve the cake into a truncated cone shape. Feed the trimming to a handy husband. Use a small knife to cut a wedge out for the mouth and carve out slanted eye sockets. Now crumb coat the cake with butter cream, making sure to get it into the mouth and eye sockets.

6. Take some uncoloured fondant and roll into different thickness sausage shapes. Press them into the buttercream to make the features of the hat. The brow and lips need to be thickest. Make a tetrahedral shape for the nose. Use thinner sausages of fodant to create ridges like creases.

7. Chill the cake for around 30 mins, till the buttercream crusts.

8. Take around 1/4 of the coloured fondant and shape into a cone, the base of which is the same size as the top of the cake. Bend the top of the cone over slightly, and use a ball tool to create creases on the inside of the bent tip. Use the dowel you will use to support the cake to make a hole in the bottom of the cone. Allow to dry, supported if necessary.

9. Take 4 sheets of kitchen towel. Roll each one up separately and wrap in cling film to make sausages. Arrage these randomly around the edge of a 14 inch cake board, pointing inwards like clock hands. Alternate them with chopstics. Brush a little tylose glue onto the board inbetween where you have arranged the kitchen towel rolls and chopsticks.

10. Roll out 1/4 (500g) of your fondant and use it to cover the 14 inch cake board, carefully folding it inbetween the supports you have made to give a shaped brim. Trim the edge, then work round tucking the edge of the fondant under. Now run a PME stitching wheel around 1/4 inch in from the edge. Allow to dry.

11. Now remove the cake from the fridge, and moisten the surface with a very little water. Roll out the remaining fondant into a rough trapezium, and use it to wrap around and cover the cake. I didn't manage it in 1 piece, I did it in 2. Carefully smooth the fondant into the features and folds. Use a ball tool to shape it into the eye sockets and mouth, and to add extra small creases. Keep the trimmings. Use the stitching tool to create a seam 1/4 inch in from the fondant joins. Dont worry if the surface cracks slightly, it actually increases the effect of old leather.

12. Now's the tricky part. Place a little buttercream in the centre of the fondant covered board. Slide the cake off it's temporary board into the centre of the fondant covered board.

13. Collect your fondant trimmings and colour a little darker with more dark brown gel. Roll out to a size larger than 12 x 4 ins. Now take a clean net bag (or fruit net), and place on the fondant, run the rolling pin over it to make an impression. Cut into two 12x2 strips (pointed at one end, curved at the other) and a few square patches of between 2x2 and 3x3. Run around the edge of each piece with the stitching wheel.

14. Moisten where the cake joins the covered board with a little water. Drape the textured strips of fondant around the cake to make a har band. Overlap the pointed ends at the front and cross the curved ends at the back.

15. Moisten the backs of the small patches and apply to the back and sides of the cake where desired.

16. Take a dowel and push through the top of the cake. Cut it so around 2 inches of dowel protrude. Take the dry fondant hat tip and push it onto the dowel. Use a little spare fondant to make a thin sausage and use it to fill in the join.

17. Finally with a soft brush work "Charcoal" colour Lustre dust dry into the creases, eyes and mouth to create shadows. Use "Champagne" lustre dust dry to create highlights and dusty smudges. Don't overload the brush, build the lustre up gradually to get a soft airbrushed effect. Now dust a little dry gold lustre dust along the hatband to pick out the texture.