Hi,

My daughter will be ten soon, and predictably... it's a Hogwarts party. She wants the Hogwarts castle in 3D as her cake.... specifically "Not a flat one, Mama!"
That I can cope with, but I am planning to set out the cake on 48 inch square table. The cake would be 18-20 inches square at the base. (devil's food cake with chocolate fudge icing, covered with butter-cream)

I would like to include, some elements of the Hogwarts grounds on the rest of the table ...eg: the Whomping willow, the forbidden forest, the quidditch pitch. My daughter is a stickler for detail and so am I.
Please help!
Any ideas on how to make the trees stand tall and straight?
Thanks in advance,
Karen
BTW I am so happy I joined this board!

Here is a link that shows how you could possibly create the castle part of your cake ...

http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.proicer/cakepict/goodies.htm

you could build your trees around the hollow plastic dowel rods that wilton sells -- i've used them a lot with great success.

keep in mind that not all of the hogwarts grounds that you're creating needs to be entirely edible -- i once made the "basilisk" (snake with a rooster's head) from one of the harry potter books for a cake out of fondant built over a foam-covered flexible clothes hanger (hook removed) -- it gave me a great, stable shape so the creature looked like he had just reared itself up onto its back-end. it sat on a board on which i also had created the girl's lavatory out of gingerbread in a kind of theatre-set fashion (including a 3-D royal icing sink that came out of the wall and a real mirror over the sink). this too, was a cake for a 10-year old's birthday (actually, 2 ten year old's shared it -- the cake underneath was eaten, and each of the boys got to take home either the basilisk or the gingerbread "diarama").

gingerbread is great for making 3-D pieces (you could also use graham crackers for structures that don't need to be quite as sturdy).