The Making of the Golden Snitch Cake

The cake.  Finally.  Before I start, though, I have to make a confession.  Here it is:

Yup, my first attempt was a massive fail.  And let's be honest, that fail should be FAIL.  The final cake was the top of the snitch (half-sphere), whereas my first try was the entire round snitch (whole sphere).  Yes, I thought it would be awesome to make a ball, filled with Jelly Bellies.  Needless to say, it didn't work.  Let's move on to what did work, shall we?

I used a Betty Crocker Bake'n Fill Cake Pan.  This is crucial if you want to fill your cake with Jelly Bellies.  You can find it here.  The secret is a dome pan, seen below, with an insert pan that molds your cake, so that it bakes hollow.

So I baked my dome cake, with the insert, then filled it with Jelly Bellies, after it cooled.  I also baked a flat round cake.  I coated the rim of the dome cake with yellow buttercream frosting, then laid my flat round cake on top.  I then laid my cake plate on top of that and flipped it over.  See below:

Magical, right?  I then frosted the entire cake with yellow buttercream.  I used Wilton Gold Sparkle Gel to create the decorations on the outside of the Golden Snitch.  To be honest, I paused Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone a million times, trying to see the front, back, sides and top of the Snitch.  To be even more honest, embarrassingly so, I took pictures of the TV with my cell phone, so that I could refer back to the paused pictures while I was working in the kitchen.  My husband kept telling me that nobody would care, but, well, I cared!  

The wings... I thought for days about how to make the wings on the Golden Snitch.  I considered using real feathers, painted cardboard, card stock, cookies.  I even tried a few of those things.  What finally worked came from here.  I used yellow Wilton Candy Melts.  I melted the candy inside a decorating bag, with a thin tip already in the end of the bag.  I drew a wing on a piece of paper (trying multiple times!), then placed a piece of wax paper over that paper.  I used the decorating bag to pipe the melted candies onto the wax paper, tracing the shape of the wing onto the wax paper.  Then I slid the paper with the wing drawn on it out from under the wax paper, flipped it over, and traced another wing with the decorating bag.  That way, my wings were symmetric.  Lastly, I painted the wings, front and back, with Wilton Pearl Dust that I had left over from this.  I hope that makes sense--Please leave me a comment if you need more details.  I'm sorry I don't have pictures of that.

I did not put the wings into the cake until it was time to bring the cake out during the party.  I left the cake in the fridge over night and the wings in the freezer overnight.  Then I gently slid the wings into the sides of the cake.  I think that they would have been fine all night, but I didn't want to risk them breaking or sliding down the sides of the cake.

So there you have it!  Nothing too difficult, just a little time-consuming.  But it was so worth it when I saw all those little faces light up, first upon seeing the cake, then as all of the Jelly Bellies spilled out.  Good luck making your own cake!

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