A Birthday cake from Hagrid

It was my birthday weekend! I was thinking about things that would make my birthday special and I decided to make a birthday cake for myself!

First, I wrote down my birthday cake plan as I really didn't want to fail.

It took so looooong to find a thick kind of vegan cream to decorate the cake with and I wanted natural pink colour to make it just like the birthday cake Harry Potter got from Hagrid.

There were a few options of vegan cream & icing such as aquafaba, pre-made soy whipped cream, coconut cream and cashew nut cream.

Aquafaba - It won't be thick enough to write a message on.

Store bought Soy whipped cream - I couldn't make it to the vegan shop after work!

Coconut cream - My partner is slightly intolerant of coconut unfortunately.

So cashew nut cream is the only option, pretty much!

I considered tofu cream but I couldn't really find a good recipe. I also was surprised that there are recipes posted online that the author hasn't even tried to make

Some people posted recipes on their site or blog but they just took them straight from cookbooks or someone else's blog. When I asked them about the ingredients or instructions they replied that they are "not sure" because they haven't tried it yet!

I found a few recipes for cashew cream and they all use similar ingredients so I sticked to that.

Another thing is, how to make the cream pink? Most people seem to use food colouring but there is also one method using dried raspberry powder. I could try to buy those but it's way too expensive. It cost around 13 dollars for a packet and I only need 1 table spoon of it!

I simply looked in my fridge and in my pantry to get ideas for something that could make pink food colouring.

Then I saw a beetroot.

That's it!

I can make a pink Harry Potter cake with this!!!

To make beetroot juice

Peel the skin then slice it into bite sized chunks. Place in a small sauce pan and cover beets with 2 or 3 tablespoons water. Simmer it until the chunks becomes tender. (I only needed juice for cream. I kept the chunks in my fridge)

Throw soaked cashews, salt, lemon juice, sugary syrup (I used agave syrup), vanilla extract and water + beetroot juice into a blender.

Blended really well until nice and smooth like the photo below

Done!!!!!

Let's frost my cake!!

I don't have a spatula so I used the straight edge of a large knife instead.

It wasn't easy to be honest, it took me nearly an hour to complete the frosting.

Alrighty, let's move to the last part

Writing this part wasn't as hard as the frosting. I mean, it's supposed to be Hagrid's cake. It shouldn't be a tidy amazing looking cake. so less pressure!

I wrote the letters with a small knife and followed it with chopsticks. I was going to put cake sprinkles over the letters but I realised it could get messy so I melted some vegan chocolate with some vegan margarine instead.