A Sorting Hat sponge cake
The Sorting Hat sponge I made for my son’s Harry Potter party is not the best cake I’ve ever tasted. That would be anything baked by my granny, or the coffee religieuse (a choux pastry puff) I ate in Boulogne-sur-Mer with my mum. But it’s the most surprisingly edible cake I’ve ever made – a vaguely Jamie-Oliver recipe with buttercream filling and tinned mandarin slices. It didn’t only work; it tasted great, and wasn’t quite as teeth-screechingly sweet as expected. My one regret is that I over-pimped the decoration: it looked so sinister in the fridge with its cold, Sorting Hat stare that the next day I stuck on googly eyes and further sparkles. This perhaps explains why everyone assumed it was a poo emoji cake, despite it being a Harry Potter party with heavy-touch theming. That people thought I actually wanted children to eat shit is a shame, but it still remains my greatest culinary success. Catherine Shoard
