the castle cake- first attempt

Here's our trial run of sweetpea's Hogwarts Castle-shaped cake for her upcoming Harry Potter birthday party. I made chocolate ganache and it kept things stuck together pretty well, but the cones got soggy after five hours. This means I can't make the cake too soon before the party!
After looking at all the chocolately goodness, there is no way I can let twenty-five little kids eat this. There will be chocolate everywhere.
So, I'm gonna make the castle cake for the "oohs" and "aahs!" and give all the kids a cupcake with a lightening bolt on it. maybe I should just give them all a spoon with frosting on it, that's all they ever eat off the cupcake anyways, right?!

In my online search for inspiration for the castle cake, here's some cool stuff I found-












This is made completely out of wooden popcicle sticks. 3000 sticks and ten hours of tedious hard work. Impressive!



















This cake won the Grand Prize for a cake contest in 2005. Wow. I'm just glad my daughter isn't envisioning something as amazing as this!

click HERE to see the super cool, beyond amazing, totally awesome cake that the cast and crew ate at Order of the Phoenix after party. We're not allowed to post the picture but it's worth clicking on the link to view.