#PotterPeeps: Hagrid's Birthday Cake for Harry

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Since Common Room is all about Pop Culture and F3 (food, fitness, and fashion), I decided to make a Hagrid-style Harry Potter Birthday Cake!!

Hagrid was Harry’s first wizard friend. I love how loyal he is to the people he cares about. I love that he’s brave enough to have monsters as pets and that he thinks it’s a good idea to teach his half giant brother English. It amuses me. He’s sensitive and sweet, which leads me to…

BUTTERBEER CUPCAKES

Expertise: Intermediate
Ease: Reasonably easy
Customizing: The only customizing I did with the cake part of the recipe was make it a regular cake rather than cupcakes. The frosting on the other hand I had some trouble with. In order to get it to blend correctly and be the right consistency, I had to add almost an entire second stick of butter. I also should’ve let the cake cool longer before frosting it because some of it melted. I decided to take inspiration from Hagrid when I decorated my cake (as you’ll notice from the photo.) Hagrid’s cake would be the first birthday cake Harry would remember having so it seemed fitting to decorate it similarly. I wonder if Hagrid’s was butterbeer flavored too?
Repeatability: If I do I will probably just use vanilla frosting and drizzle butterscotch syrup over it. Because the cake is pretty good, but the frosting is extremely sweet. Coming from me that is saying a lot since I love sweets.

Melissa’s Nutritional Tidbit: It’s definitely challenging to modify a recipe called “Butterbeer cupcakes”- who wants to take out the butter from Butterbeer cupcakes? The name alone exudes fatty and creamy deliciousness. Don’t get me wrong, butter is quite tasty, but it can also be quite unhealthy. It contains trans-fat: vegetable oil that has been solidified through a process called hydrogenation. Trans-fat increases your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, thereby increasing your risk for heart disease. I know the French believe in the virtues of butter, but try to use as little butter as possible. Though there is no clear answer on the health debate between margarine and butter, margarine is more virtuous than butter. Margarine contains plant oils, as opposed to butter, which is made from animal fats.

So what can you do? Choose a soft spread margarine, which contains less saturated and trans fats. The more solid the margarine is, the more trans fat it contains. My best tip for this recipe? Use margarine instead of butter. While it may not be as “creamy and luscious,” your arteries will be thanking you later!