Harry Potter Snitch Cake Tutorial

This Harry Potter Snitch cake is easy to make and quite a statement piece, perfect for any Harry Potter Party, Celebration or event.  This cake doesn’t need a ton of supplies or time to make and everyone always loves it.

How I designed this Harry Potter Snitch Cake

July 31st is Harry Potters birthday so it’s the perfect day to celebrate.  My kids love Harry Potter (we spent a week at Universal Studios last year and they were in HEAVEN!).

And of course any birthday party is a good excuse to celebrate with a Harry Potter theme.  This specific cake was originally created for my friend Kaylynn, but it’s an easy and quick enough cake I’ve made it quite a few times over the last few years.

Now you can carve a round cake or simply bake a round cake.  I baked two half ball pans, AND a filler layer.

The ball  pans don’t bake perfectly even so once you level it it doesn’t make a perfect circle so that’s when a filler layer comes in.  You can bake another cake layer in a normal round pan or do something fun.

I used a layer of crustless cheesecake.  The first time I made this cake I used 6 inch pans, the second time I used 8 inch pans.

Now if you’ve seen the Big Bang Theory you know that a perfectly round cake tend to roll… and since we don’t want our cake rolling off the cake plate I cut a 3 inch circle out of one of the half circles.

This creates a flat section for our cake to stand on.  Add ganache to a foil covered cardboard circle and stick it to the flat section.

Because it’s easier to frost the bottom half of the cake while it’s still upside down that’s what I do.  Using Ganache of course, it’s what I always use for shaped cakes, esp cakes, like this, that could easily fall apart, off balanced.

Turn it right side up. Then cover the cake with ganache and add the cheesecake.

Add more ganache (best edible glue ever) and top with the other half circle. Finish frosting the cake with more ganache, smooth it out and let it set!

Roll out your yellow/ivory fondant circle, you want it about 1/4 inch thick.  That way it will be easier to stretch, pull and push into place without creases when you start thick.

BUT you need to make sure you have a strong dense cake that can hold up under the weight of the fondant.

Cover the cake with the fondant and working around (not one side at a time, work around evenly) finally cutting off the excess and smoothing it with your hands, softly, so as not to leave a handprint anywhere.

Now it’s time to add the details.  To get it to stick I use a steamer and steam the cake, it makes it tacky so it will hold the details.

I use a clay extruder (only for food though, don’t cross contaminate).  I started with the largest circle and added the main swirl around the side and the main lines on the top.  Don’t forget the turn and curl on the sides.

Using the Medium circle i added the second line and center top swirls.  Then added another swirl to the side as well.  Then using the next size down circle I added the large wing line swirl around the entire snitch.

Next up, with the same circle, add the petal shape on the sides and the lines, I broke the petal up into thirds and made the lines there.  Then, between those long lines again.

And finally add the round balls that the wing’s attach to, but not too large, not a full circle, but not a half circle either.  Along the sides, between the original fat swirl add the last smaller swirl, take a dull tool and draw lines (indentations) on the diagonal, on both sides.

Finally it’s time to paint the cake gold! The first time I used a gold airbrush, but I didn’t love the gold, too yellowish and not shiny enough.

I finally found a gold dust I love the shade of – There are a lot of options out there.  I found that all the ones I liked best were dusts that you mix with some food grade alcohol to make a paste for painting.

Now for the fondant underneath – you can use ivory or  yellow like me, but also with the right gold you can use black underneath to create a nice depth as well..

I will say right now that the wings were the hardest part, I even had an EPIC fail.  The first time I made it I used gumpaste and it was just too heavy when it was so detailed.

I got the cake all ready for pictures and the feathers just started falling off (more down below) GAH, but when I switched to using wafer paper instead (still edible) I got the light and flowy effect I was looking for!

For the wings the first thing I did was bend the wire where I wanted it to go into the cake so I knew the length I had to work with for the wing itself.  I used 18 gauge covered wire for strength.

Then I cut the wing shape – leaving some extra along the top for wraping around the wire.  For wafer paper to stick it to itself you get it slightly damp, but not super wet.  Do get the edge damp and wrap it around the wire.

Then I painted one side with my gold dust paste, let it dry, flip it over and painted the other side.  Once both sides were dry I cut strips – trying not to cut all the way to the wire so you can still control the shape.

Next up bend the wings how you want and using a needle nose pliers slide the wings into the cake!

Tools to make this Harry Potter Cake

• 2 half ball pan cakes
• 1 filler cake/cheesecake
• ganache recipe
• fondant
• fondant extruder
• fondant mat
• fondant rolling pin
• 18 gauged covered wire
• shortening
• wafer paper
• gold dust
• food grade alcohol

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If you love this Snitch cake you’ll love these other themed cakes too!

Tamtoa Cake |Pikmin 2 Spaceship Cake | Glow in the dark Good Dinosaur Cake

Standing Lego Batman Cake | Soda Bottle Cake | Doctor Strange Cake

This week Marissa, from Rae Gun Ramblings, is having a ton of guests and features, like this one, to celebrate Harry Potters Birthday!  Head on over to her site so see all the posts and links for this fun week!  Crafts, food and more!