This Harry Potter Cake is inspired by the famous birthday cake Hagrid gave Harry for his 11th birthday! It’s a tasty and fun treat every harry Potter fan will enjoy!
This Harry Potter Birthday cake is mentioned in the Sorcerer’s Stone as a gift from Hagrid! I chose to make a a delicious white cake with vanilla buttercream, but you can choose any cake flavor you like!
Hagrid’s baking skills leave much to be desired, but this Harry Potter Birthday Cake is so tasty you won’t have any leftovers!
What you will need for Hagrid's cake:
- Your favorite boxed cake mix (plus the oil, water and eggs it calls for)
- Cake Pan- I used a 6 inch but you can use an 8 inch or 10 inch
- 1 batch of buttercream frosting (butter, heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt)
- Green and Pink/Magenta Food Gel Coloring – you can find these in the cake decorating isle at the grocery store
- Piping Bag and a Round Writing Tip (Wilton 12 or smaller)- you can also just cut the tip off a zip loc bag and use that to write! (affiliate link)
What size cake does this recipe make?
Since this recipe uses a boxed cake mix you can make any size cake from 6, 8, 9, or 10 inches. I chose a 6 inch cake single layer.
If you do only make a single layer cake then you will have leftover batter. I recommend making cupcakes that are Harry Potter themed with leftover batter (sorting hat cupcakes perhaps!?)
Helpful Tip: This recipe will have leftover frosting. You can use this for decorating the extra cakes or cupcakes you bake with the extra batter!
Now Hagrid’s cooking and baking is often described as chewing rocks or something equally unpleasant, and although we will be making the cake look like the Hagrid birthday cake it will taste much better, nothing at all like rocks!
How to make Harry Potter Cake
- Mix up your cake batter according the directions on the box.
- Bake cake according to box directions, use leftover batter for cupcakes or more cake rounds.
- Once cake is done baking, allow to cool, then level if need be.
- While cake is cooling, mix up frosting, adding green food gel to ⅓rd of it and pink/magenta food gel to the rest.
- Frost the cake with pink frosting (I did a quick crumb coat but it isn’t absolutely necessary).
- Use a butter knife or skewer to make the cracks on the cake.
- Pipe on HAPPEE BIRTHDAE HARRY in green frosting.
This July 31st I hope you celebrate Harry Potter’s birthday with this fun and easy Harry Potter Birthday Cake!
If you want a super easy way to doctor a cake mix to make it even tastier then check out my simple white cake recipe.
If you want to make a chocolate cake from scratch for this Hagrid Birthday Cake, check out this buttermilk chocolate cake (it’s my favorite!)
In the past I’ve shared lots of Disneyland inspired recipes (like my mint julep, strawberry shortcake marshmallow wands), my Fortnight Durr Burger, these Chewbacca Cookies, and my fun Portal Cake, but this time I wanted to share a recipe inspired by one of my favorite book series growing up!
Which Harry Potter book was your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!
Although I love all of them, I think the Goblet of Fire will always be my absolute favorite.
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Harry Potter Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 1 box white cake mix I used the Betty Crocker brand*
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1.25 cup water
- 3 egg whites
For the Best White Butter Cream Frosting
- 1 cup butter softened to room temp
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbs vanilla
- 5 tbs heavy cream
- Pinch of salt
- Pink and Green food coloring I used Food Gel
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Prep your cake rounds by covering the inside of the pans with a light layer of butter and then dusting with flour, or use a nonstick baking spray like baker's joy.
- Mix together, either by hand or in a stand mixer, the oil, water and egg whites. Then mix in the boxed cake mix. Pour batter in cake pans you are using.1 box white cake mix, ⅓ cup vegetable oil, 1.25 cup water, 3 egg whites
- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Make sure to bake all the cakes on the same oven rack so they bake evenly.
- Let the cakes cool for 5 minutes then flip upside down onto a wire cooling rack and remove the pans. They should come out easily.
- Let the cakes cool completely before frosting. Level the cakes after cooling if need be.
To make the frosting:
- In a stand mixer, whip your butter on medium high speed until the butter is light and fluffy.1 cup butter
- Alternate between adding in the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time and the heavy cream 1-2 tbs at a time, letting them mix into the butter completely.5 cups powdered sugar, 5 tbs heavy cream
- Add in the vanilla and a pinch of salt, allowing the ingredients to incorporate fully.1 tbs vanilla, Pinch of salt
- Measure out approximately 1 cup of frosting and mix in the green food coloring to it. Add the pink color to the remaining frosting and mix in completely. If the frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar ¼ cup at a time, if too thick add a more heavy cream 1 tbs at a time.Pink and Green food coloring
To decorate the cake:
- Add a spoonful of frosting to the center of cake plate and place your cake centered on top.
- Add a crumb coat layer of frosting over the entire cake using the pink frosting*. A crumb coat layer is a thin layer of frosting that helps keep all the crumbs stuck to the cake. The crumb coat is not supposed to be pretty!
- Stick your crumb coated cake in the refrigerator or freezer for 10 minutes to allow it to harden.
- After 10 minutes, remove the cake and frost with the final layer of pink frosting, This does not have to be pretty since you want it to look like Hagrid made it! Using a butter knife make several lines so it looks like the cake was pieced together, similar to what it looked like in the movie.
- Then using a writing piping tip, piping bag and green frosting, pipe on HAPPEE BIRTHDAE HARRY. You can also just cut the tip off a zip loc baggie and use that.
Notes
- You can use any boxed cake brand. Just make sure to follow their instructions and ingredient amounts.
- *This will make three 6 inch cakes or two 8 inch cakes. You can make one cake and use the leftover batter for cupcakes.
- *In the picture I crumb coated this cake in white buttercream, then died the remaining frosting purple and green. In hindsight I would recommend using purple for a crumb coat in addition to the final frosting.
- This recipe will make extra frosting. Use it for the extra cupcakes or cakes made with the leftover batter.
- Nutritional info is and estimate and based off of ⅛th piece of one 6 inch cake.
Nutrition
I am not affiliated with Harry Potter, JK Rowling, or WarnerBros. This is a fan made inspired by the movie recipe.
Post updated 6/29/2022
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