Happy Hogwarts Birthday

I'm no Pinterest junkie, so I kind of shocked Adam when I started working on a Harry Potter themed birthday party for RG ... who turned ELEVEN this month, so hello! Hogwarts party it is!! (When SM turned 11, that was sadly the year I decreed no parties at all. What was I thinking!?!? We'll have to make it up to her at her next birthday.)

There are many, many more elaborate ways to have a Harry Potter party. This would barely register for "party stylist" type people, but it was a pretty big deal for me. We spiced up our living room with a bit of Hogwarts Great Hall flair.

Crepe paper and disposable tablecloths on my friend Kelly's long tables did the trick. (The dollar store is my new favorite place for things that are just going to be thrown away. What took me so long?) I also printed out small House banners on cardstock, which were on either side of the fireplace.

The birthday girl greeted her guests in her brand new Gryffindor robes.

I used this tutorial, but made things more complicated for myself by putting right sides together in a couple of places. Meh. Just follow the directions as is, and fold in your raw edges to secure with a top-stitch. It would have gone a lot faster. If using 44-inch fabric for the wrist-to-wrist side so you can do the fold on a length of yardage, this is sized for kids. I don't think you could use this tutorial with the way the fabric is folded for adults. Two and a half yards is a good amount of fabric for a child somewhere around 4-foot-6. RG is 4'8". 

As the witches and wizards arrived, they each selected their own sorting hat.

There was a single color of M&Ms in each one to identify the House (red = Gryffindor, etc), and there was no way even for me to know who was choosing what after they were glued shut. It was fully a surprise for everyone in the room.

We had 12 guests, so there were three per house for our Harry Potter Trivia Challenge. RG wasn't allowed to be sorted/compete anyway because she would have answered every question ... so to stop that before it even started, I told her she could help moderate the competition. One of the Slytherin girls - by herself - beat all three other teams. I would have liked to have seen how she and RG stacked up against each other, but RG already knew the questions.

After Slytherin kicked butt in the trivia test, it was time to eat. Butterbeer cookies, double chocolate cauldrons, and Polyjuice potion. Recipes for the cookies and cake are at the links. The potion was Sprite, blue Hawaiian punch, and pineapple juice.

The chocolate cauldrons were AWESOME. This was definitely my favorite on how it turned out. I used the recipe for the cake, which had the thick and heavy consistency of brownies, and for the center cream filling. There's also a recipe for the outer chocolate frosting included, but I just bought that. The handles were made from Wilton's Candy Melt chocolate shaped with a plain round icing tip and "drawn" on parchment paper until it set.

After our sugared-up "feast," we sent them all downstairs to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As our guests left, their favor was a chocolate frog. I bought the mold on Amazon (watch the little spots for the eyes - I had to use my finger to press the melted chocolate all the way in), so there is a strong possibility of more Harry Potter celebrations in the future!

peppermint cupcakes

Number 42 of 50 ... I'm closing in on the end, and it's a darn good thing because we're pretty much at the end of the year! We're going out of town in a week, and I still have 8 recipes to go!

Peppermint cupcakes

I made these as a test-run for Mindy's wedding on the 29th. The only change I made was that I put in 3/4 tsp of peppermint extract instead of 1/2. The flavor was barely there with the lesser amount, and I liked it a bit stronger. I took them to playgroup, and the whole batch was eaten right up. The other moms gave this a thumb's up and wanted the recipe too.

cake truffles

Tanya posted about these on her personal blog here - I think they're really cute and wanted to get the info out for everyone in case someone wants to make something similar this weekend. They'd also be really cute at Christmas in other colors to be little ornaments or something.

The original idea is from bakerella.com and I just spent a little while going through that site. Click on the "cake pops" option in the top left corner, and you will get TONS of ideas on what to do with these things for pretty much every single holiday!

"darn good chocolate cake"

This is from the Cake Doctor cookbook - I made it last year for my friend Jackie, and today for Adam's birthday. Everyone who has had this LOVES it - so moist and rich!

1 box of chocolate fudge cake mix
1 small box (3.9 ounces) of chocolate instant pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
semisweet chocolate chips

powdered sugar

Mix all the ingredients except the chocolate chips and powdered sugar. Be careful with your hand mixer because this is REALLY thick. I think I may have started to burn out the motor on my mixer with this.

Fold in the chocolate chips just before you put it in the pan.

The recipe says to make this in a bundt pan - I did it that way with Jackie. Today I made it with 2 8-inch rounds, which also worked fine. It wasn't as pretty as the bundt, because I don't frost it so you could see the split between the layers in the side. But whatever. No one commented on it. I don't know that anyone even noticed, let alone cared. Anyway ...

Grease and flour the pan, bake at 350. If you use a bundt, bake for 45 minutes. The 8-inch rounds took 30 minutes.

Cool for 20 minutes in the pan, then another 20 minutes on a wire rack. Sprinkle with sifted powdered sugar, and eat! It's really great warm!