Harry Potter’s Birthday Cake

 It’s Harry Potter’s 42nd birthday today, so I have made a mini replica of the first birthday cake that he ever had, made by Hagrid.

It is a chocolate cake with buttercream icing:

The cake recipe that I used for this cake is available here. I made the icing using this recipe. I made a quarter of the cake recipe for a single layer 6” cake, and half of the icing recipe.

The cake itself is sugar- tastic delicious. A word of warning - you will need to do s crumb coat when icing the cake and have a glass of hot water to dip your knife into while icing the cake, as the cake tends to stick to the icing as you try to spread it.

Happee Birthdae Harry!

TWD - S’mores Icecream Cake

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is S’mores Icecream Cake.

The original was an enormous 9” cake containing a lot of icecream and chocolate. I quartered the recipe and ended up with 2 x 10cm heart shaped cakes.
 

The cake starts with a biscuit and peanut base, topped with icecream, then fudge sauce, then more icecream, then a peanut butter/marshmallow fluff filling, then yet more icecream and finally more fudge sauce. After freezing the cake for 6 hours, it is topped with mini marshmallows that are then torched, and put into the freezer again.

You end up with a cake that is a rather rich, decadent treat:

I used all vanilla icecream rather than 3 separate flavours as suggested by Dorie. Marshmallow fluff is not easy to come by here and I’d be unlikely to use it again, so I made a homemade version using melted marshmallows and corn syrup. 

While I do enjoy this icecream cake, it is quite a process to make and rather decadent, so once what I have is gone, I won’t make it again.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Gozinaki

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Gozinaki.  This is a Georgian sweet made with three ingredients - walnuts, honey and sugar.

You toast and chop the walnuts, then stir them into a mixture of boiled honey and sugar - flatten, roll, shape, set and cut. Done!

This is definitely more of a sweet than a cookie, and it is very sweet. That said, it is delicious, but a small piece is enough.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Crumb- Topped Ricotta Coffee Cake

Today’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Crumb-Topped Ricotta Coffee Cake. It comprises a dense ricotta based cake base, topped with blueberries and finally with a crumb topping.

Mine took almost twice the recommended 50 minutes to bake, but came out ok.

 My recommendation is to serve it warm with icecream - just saying.

To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

WWDH - Sticky Miso Roasted Chicken with Sesame Pumpkin

This week’s Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe is Sticky Miso Roasted Chicken on Sesame Pumpkin.

This is a delicious dish where pumpkin doused in a sesame seed mixture is topped with chicken coated with a miso paste sauce.

 I used dukkah in place of just sesame for the pumpkin, and jointed a whole chicken rather than using chicken thigh fillets.

This one is definitely a keeper.

To see more Donna Hay dishes, visit Kayte and Margaret.

TWD - Chocolate-Pecan Cookies

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Chocolate-Pecan Cookies.

These delicious cookies involve combining finely chopped pecans with Dorie’s good for almost anything chocolate cookie dough, and topping the cookies with a mixture of nuts, sugar and egg whites.

These are simply delish. The cookies also hold their shape well in the oven, so top marks from me.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.