Jonny McCambridge: Another birthday cake baking disaster – the tale of the headless Harry Potter

Only once in my adolescence did I attend a birthday party which was thrown for one of my classmates. I don’t remember who the lucky recipient was, but I do have memories of wearing a strange yellow hat, eating butterscotch Angel Delight and then having to watch the interminable video of Darby O’Gill and the Little People.

Things are different now. Birthday parties are big business. In my son’s early years of school, it was the norm that everyone from the class got invited to all the parties. For a couple of years there was barely a weekend went past without a party, and it was not unknown to have two or even three on the same day.

Thankfully the kids become a bit more selective as they grow older and the outings are refined to include activities to be shared with just a few close friends.

But there is always cake. While my wife organises just about every other aspect of the annual party, the cake is my domain. I have written in this column before about the pressure I have put myself under trying to produce complicated cakes when I possess limited baking skills. For years I tried to do creations which looked like objects my son was interested in. There was the pirate ship cake which sank, the train cake which derailed and the dinosaur cake which quickly went extinct.

Nowadays I try to take a more relaxed approach. My boy is currently going through a Harry Potter phase. Rather than disgrace myself by trying to produce a wizard-shaped bake, I settle instead for producing a Hogwarts-themed cake.

I have a reliable recipe for a rich chocolate cake which I bake in a round tin. Then it is split and iced. I then cover the perimeter of the cake in chocolate fingers and the surface in lots of little silver candy balls. This exterior decoration helps to take the rough look off my amateurish attempts at icing.

And then the finishing touch. I order off Amazon edible figures of Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione to sit atop the finished cake, thus giving it the Hogwarts theme. I finish the cake and take a step backwards. My first impression is that I am pleased. I call my son to take a look and he is much more than pleased. Then because I am needy, I post a photograph on social media. One respondent congratulates me on my clever idea of decorating the top of the cake with quidditch balls. Huh?

However, the biggest challenge is still to come. How do I transfer the delicate cake to the location for the birthday party? My son is going go-karting with his friends in Newry before travelling to a diner in Banbridge for the party. The plan is hatched that my wife will take the boys to the track while I drop the cake off at the diner first before travelling on to meet them.

I slowly drive to Banbridge with the cake sitting in the passenger seat beside me. I try to avoid bumps and hold it with one hand while going slowly around corners. I finally arrive at the diner and discover that it does not open for another two hours.

I am left uselessly holding the elaborate cake. I look at the sky where there is not a cloud and the sun is burning fiercely. The cake goes back into the passenger seat while I undertake the tortuous and slow drive to Newry. When I eventually arrive at the track, I put the cake into the boot in a desperate attempt to keep it cool. Two hours later I retrieve it and discover, as I have feared, that the chocolate has started to melt. The cake again takes up its position in the passenger seat as I begin the trek back to Banbridge.

I have not travelled 10 miles before Harry’s head falls off. I pull over and attempt to reattach it. Within another couple of miles his head has become detached again and rolled under the passenger seat, Hermoine has collapsed face first and Ron is leaning dangerously to the left as if severely inebriated.

Worse is to follow. As the merciless sun beats down on the cake, the chocolate fingers start to fall off. One by one collapse like dominos. This has the resultant effect in allowing the silver balls, loosened by the heat, to roll off the surface of the cake. Soon I am unable to change gears without hearing the crunch of a candy orb underneath the clutch. Gamely, I try to keep the cake secure, but it is melting hopelessly and soon my hand, sleeve, and much of the passenger seat upholstery are covered in melted chocolate goo.

I am almost in tears by the time I finally arrive at the diner’s car park in Banbridge. I try to do some salvage work on the once-proud cake. The chocolate fingers are reattached as best I can, the silver balls are gathered from the floor, cleared of dust and grit and stuck back to the icing. Ron and Hermione are placed upright once more. I spend some minutes looking under the passenger seat before I find Harry Potter’s head. I try to stick it back on using some melted chocolate. He looks more like Quasimodo now. I enter the restaurant, feeling rather foolish as I present the cake to a waiter who hides it in the kitchen. I offer to show him the photograph of how it looked earlier in the morning, but he seems not to be interested.