Harry Potter is my lifelong, all-time, #1 fandom. I just love the magical world so much, nothing can even compare! I even threw myself a Harry Potter birthday party when I turned 25 years old. And no HP party’s dessert table is complete without Harry Potter cupcakes!
I’ve rounded up a bunch of resources so this can be your one-stop-shop for Harry Potter cupcake recipes, toppers, supplies, and more. Pictures of the cupcakes are included for some quick visual inspiration!
All of the homemade DIY recipes here are high-quality, easy, and achievable without being overly complicated. And if you’d rather buy your Harry Potter themed cupcakes instead of making them, I’ll tell you the best place to go get them!
There are FREE printable Harry Potter cupcake toppers a little further down, don’t miss them!
How to Make Harry Potter Cupcakes
- Make them ahead. The actual cake and any frosting are easily done the day before the party so you’re not scrambling to finish them while setting up everything else! Most fondant toppers can be made ahead of time, too, which gives them time to stiffen so they won’t sag or warp when placed on top of frosting. Just save any drizzled sauces for the day of the party.
- Read the WHOLE recipe well ahead of time. Don’t get down to the day before the party to realize you don’t have the right flavor extract or kitchen equipment to make your Harry Potter cupcakes!
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew. I don’t mean literally biting into cupcakes. What I mean is, make sure the tutorial you choose is something you have the skill to achieve rather than trying to make elaborate masterpieces when you only do this once or twice a year. There are plenty of GORGEOUS Harry Potter cupcakes that take minimal effort and know-how!
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Harry Potter Cupcake Supplies
Cupcake Pans
- [NON-STICK STEEL] Cupcake Tin, high quality non-stick steel surface…
- [EASY TO USE + DEMOULD] Excellent non-stick Duty-Heavy Carbon…
- [FUN & VERSATILE!] Not just for Muffin! CHEFMADE cupcake baking pan…
- [THE NON-STICK BAKEWARE] cleans effortlessly, and washing the pan by…
- [5 Year “BAKED IN” Warranty] Your premium muffin pan with a lid…
If you don’t already have some muffin/cupcake pans, I recommend this pair of CHEFMADE nonstick pans. For one thing, you need at least two pans if you’re baking for a party – I have never, ever only made 12 cupcakes for one of my kids’ birthday parties. Plus, while you’ll probably want to use cupcake liners for the Harry Potter birthday party, when you’re baking for yourself you don’t have to – and these pans bake evenly and have a clean release every time!
Cupcake Liners
- Brand: Eoonfirst
- 60g paper, Non-Stick, Easy-to-Peel, Sturdy Cupcake paper – these…
- Size: gold standard foil baking cups, bottom diameter 5.0cm/1.97inch;…
- Packing: PET cylindrical box for food.easy to select, easy to protect,…
- Use: gold foil cupcake liners, best choice to enhance your birthday,…
You should always use cupcake liners when baking for a party. You don’t want to be touching the actual cake guests will be eating when you start passing them out. For Harry Potter-themed cupcakes, I’d go with gold foil liners like these – they lend themselves well to the common metals found in many Harry Potter props, like the Sword of Gryffindor!
Cooling Racks
To get your cupcakes cool enough for frosting as quickly as possible, you need cooling racks. I love my stackable ones because they don’t take up so much counter space, and these Wilton Ultra Bake cooling racks are even better than mine because they have fewer wires criss-crossing, making washing them a lot easier!
Extra-Large Frosting Tip
- Ideal for decorating cakes, cookies and more
- All tips work with standard bags and couplers, unless otherwise…
- This extra-large tip set includes Star Tip#1M, Flower Tip#2D and Round…
- Dishwasher safe
- Contents: 3pc set
Have you ever tried achieving that nice, plump cupcake frosting look with your regular frosting tips? Yeah, it doesn’t work. You need giant tips like these Wilton XL tips to achieve cupcake perfection. And don’t forget the large coupler you’ll need to attach them to your piping bag!
- White plastic coupler specifically for use with large decorating and…
- This package contains one coupler base and one ring
- Imported large coupler
Sprinkles
- Sprinkle Pouches in an elegant assortment of gold, silver and white…
- Includes: gold and Silver Star sprinkles; gold and Silver confetti…
- Stars and confetti sprinkles net Weight: 1. 1 oz. (30-32 g); sanding…
- Stars, confetti, sanding sugar and nonpareils made in a facility that…
- Jimmies contain soy; also made on equipment that also processes tree…
I guess you don’t have to have sprinkles on a cupcake, but… they’re just better with ’em, man. For Harry Potter cupcakes, I strongly recommend gold and silver cupcakes, because those metals are part of the Gryffindor and Slytherin house colors, as well as lots of items from the movies. This Wilton sprinkles set includes circles, stars, and sanding sugar (aka edible glitter).
Harry Potter Cupcake Toppers
If you’re really in a pinch for decorating Harry Potter birthday cupcakes, the best thing you can do is just make some normal cupcakes with frosting in whatever flavors the birthday kid prefers, then stick some themed cupcake toppers in them! I’ve got several sets of Harry Potter cupcake toppers to show you… and I’m offering readers one of them for FREE!
Printable Toppers
Hogwarts House Crests
These Hogwarts house crest cupcake toppers are of my own design! It includes the crests of all four houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff) as well as the Hogwarts school crest! There’s a PDF for easy printing and punching (you just need a 2-inch punch, like this EK Tools one from Wal-mart). Or, if you prefer to use a machine like a Cricut Maker with the Print Then Cut feature, there are transparent PNGs of each crest included for getting perfectly shaped crests for your cake toppers.
Just make sure you have some extra-long sandwich toothpicks, too, so you have plenty of room to attach the crests and still shove them securely down in your cupcakes.
Harry Potter Characters
Another one of my designs, these Harry Potter character cupcake toppers include Chibi-style Funko POP! images for each character. It includes Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Dumbledore, Voldemort, Luna, Sirius, Snape, Bellatrix, Hagrid, and Dobby. Just like the one above, it comes with a PDF as shown where you can easily print and punch out 2-inch toppers. Or, you can use the full-body PNG images of each character to Print Then Cut with your Cricut (up to 6 inches wide!).
Free Harry Potter Icon Toppers
This last PDF design I am offering to readers for FREE! (Of course, if you’d rather have the PNG images for Print Then Cut, you can still purchase them here.) This is a set of 12 iconic Harry Potter symbols, including “Happy Birthday” in a Harry Potter font, the Sorting Hat, the Deathly Hallows symbol, some potions bottles, the Elder wand, a golden snitch, a Firebolt broom, Hedwig the snowy owl, the Platform 9 3/4 sign, Harry’s signature hairline with scar and glasses, a lightning bolt, and the HP logo.
The PNG images (available only in the premium version linked above) are still the same colored circles as shown, but they are individual transparent images for use with Print Then Cut.
Buy and Receive ASAP
Carefully Crafted Icons
These iconic Harry Potter cupcake toppers would be quite tedious to make on your own. You’ll get 31 pre-made toppers, including a large one for a full-sized cake! And these have FREE one-day shipping with Amazon Prime, so you’ll be ready for your party on time. (Not an Amazon Prime subscriber? Just sign up for a free 30-day trial to use the one-day shipping!)
Rings that Double as Favors
If you’re throwing a Harry Potter birthday party for particularly young children, these House crest ring toppers are sure to be a hit. Just frost each cupcake in a different house color and top it with its appropriate ring. The kids will love showing off their new “jewelry” while eating their desserts! They won’t ship as fast as the Amazon ones above, but Walmart usually gets things out quickly.
Simple + Easy Harry Potter Cupcakes
The easiest way to make Harry Potter cupcakes is to make your cupcakes like you normally would, then add one of the cupcake toppers above! That way you can have any flavor you want and don’t have to stress out over the design.
You could try a special frosting flavor on the cupcakes, like this peanut butter one from Baked by an Introvert:
Or get some of these cute lightning bolt sprinkles from Etsy to top some vanilla buttercream frosting cupcakes!
Butterbeer Cupcakes
Sugar and Soul
One of the most popular butterbeer cupcake recipes on the entire internet, these things are gorgeous AND tasty!
Special Supplies Needed: butter extract; HP book page wrappers
Flavors: toffee, butter, and butterscotch
Time to Make: 52 minutes
Skill: Beginner-Intermediate
Craft Gossip Party Ideas
Caramel corn adds a unique punch to these butter beer cupcakes!
Special Supplies Needed: butterscotch extract; caramel popcorn
Flavors: yellow cake, butter, butterscotch, caramel
Time to Make: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Skill: Beginner
Sorting Hat Cupcakes
Son Shine Kitchen
Not only do those cupcakes have cute Hershey Kiss sorting hats on top, but they also all have a different color filling to let the eater know which Hogwarts House they belong to!
Special Supplies Needed: melon baller; Hershey’s kisses
Flavors: vanilla cake, chocolate and/or vanilla frosting
Time to Make: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Skill: Beginner-Intermediate
Housewife Eclectic
These cupcakes all have different colors of M&Ms hidden inside, so when they’re eaten the eater is “sorted!” Red M&Ms for Gryffindor, green M&Ms for Slytherin, yellow M&Ms for Hufflepuff, and blue M&Ms for Ravenclaw.
Special Supplies Needed: M&Ms; Tootsie Rolls
Flavors: chocolate, butterscotch
Time to Make: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Skill: Intermediate
Hogwarts House Cupcakes
Whether you want to incorporate all four houses or showcase your kid’s favorite Hogwarts house in your cupcake flavors and design, here are some simple ideas to make your mouth water!
Panko Bunny
These very simple Hogwarts House cupcakes just use two colors of frosting placed side-by-side in the piping bag to create a swirled look on top of each cupcake.
Gryffindor: red and gold
Slytherin: green and white
Hufflepuff: yellow and black
Ravenclaw: blue and brown (bronze)
Skill: Beginner
Red Velvet Gryffindor House Cupcakes
Red velvet lends itself well to Gryffindor’s house color of red; add some of the yellow lightning bolt sprinkles to complete the palette!
Special Supplies Needed: gold foil liners; lightning bolt sprinkles
Flavors: red velvet (chocolate), cream cheese
Time to Make: 1 hour
Skill: Beginner
Chocolate Mint Slytherin House Cupcakes
Mint chocolate was one of my favorite flavors as a kid. And what kid wouldn’t love gummy worms – aka Slytherin snakes – in their cupcake??
Special Supplies Needed: green sugar crystals; green and white gummy worms
Flavors: chocolate, mint
Time to Make: 1 hour
Skill: Beginner
Midnight Blue Velvet Ravenclaw House Cupcakes
These beautiful cupcakes are an adapted version of red velvet… and will most definitely make everyone’s mouths blue.
Special Supplies Needed: liquid blue food coloring
Flavors: chocolate
Time to Make: 1 hour
Skill: Beginner
Lemon Buttercream Hufflepuff House Cupcakes
Who knew lemon and chocolate would go so well together? As an adult, these are my two favorite flavors, so I’m in love. Make the cupcakes dark chocolate so they come close to matching the Hufflepuff palette of black and yellow.
Special Supplies Needed: zester
Flavors: lemon, chocolate
Time to Make: 1 hour
Skill: Beginner
Pull-Apart Cupcake Cakes
Harry Potter Cupcakes Owl Cake
There’s no tutorial for this pull-apart owl cake , but based on this image, the main special ingredients you’ll need are vanilla wafers and yellow and brown M&Ms! It looks like they also used some edible gold sugar on Hedwig’s belly. Just use a white buttercream frosting on each cupcake with white cupcakes.
Hagrid’s Birthday Cake Made of Cupcakes
This is a quick and simple video tutorial on how to recreate Hagrid’s infamous pink birthday cake using just 7 regular cupcakes. It’s perfect for a small family birthday party!
Special Supplies Needed: green Krim Stix or tube of green frosting
Flavors: sweet cream, your choice of cake
Time to Make: 30 minutes
Skill: Beginner
Golden Snitch Cupcakes
The snitch’s wings can be drawn with vanilla almond bark on wax paper and left to dry for easy cupcake decorating!
Special Supplies Needed: white chocolate for melting; gold sanding sugar
Flavors: any cake mix you want; vanilla frosting and wings
Time to Make: 45 minutes
Skill: Beginner
Owl Cupcakes
Oreo Owls
You’ll need lots of single-sided oreos with the filling on them to achieve these owl faces. Guess you’ll just have to take one for the team and eat all of the other cookies!
Special Supplies Needed: Oreos; M&Ms
Flavors: chocolate and/or vanilla
Time to Make: 1 hour 15 minutes
Skill: Beginner
Cinnamon Sugar Owls
These owl cupcakes use mini Oreos so there’s more room to elaborate on the owl’s body, and they come out super stinking cute.
Special Supplies Needed: Oreo Minis; black sunflower seeds
Flavors: cinnamon
Time to Make: 2 hours
Skill: Intermediate
Mandrake Cupcakes
Kojo Designs
These mandrake faces are made with mochi, but you could use pretty much any kind of modeling food (including chocolate) you like.
Special Supplies Needed: mochi or modeling chocolate; fresh herbs
Flavors: chocolate
Time to Make: 1 hour 30 minutes
Skill: Beginner
Mothers Niche
These mandrakes are incredibly cute with their little hands poking over the top of the peat pots!
Special Supplies Needed: peat pots; light brown fondant
Flavors: chocolate
Time to Make: 2 hours
Skill: Intermediate
Harry Potter Sleeping Draught Cupcakes
Do you remember in Chamber of Secrets when Hermione made those cupcakes that put Crabbe and Goyle to sleep so Harry and Ron coud turn into them? Yeah, that’s what these are!! (If you don’t have any sleeping potion handy, you can just use lavender extract.. ha!)
Special Supplies Needed: lavender extract
Flavors: vanilla and chocolate
Time to Make: 1 hour
Skill: Beginner
Chocolate Frog Cupcakes
The thought of eating chocolate frogs that can actually jump has always grossed me out. Fortunately, these chocolate frogs aren’t actually magical and can happily be eaten without risk of it running away.
Special Supplies Needed: frog candy mold
Flavors: chocolate, peanut butter
Time to Make: 2 hours
Skill: Beginner-Intermediate
Fondant Harry Potter Cupcakes
I Love Cakes
This mesmerizing video shows exactly how TEN different Harry Potter cupcake toppers were made out of fondant.
Pre-Made Fondant Toppers
These pre-made Harry Potter themed cupcake toppers might be pricey, but they’re gorgeous and will save YOU a ton of time!
Halloween Harry Potter Cupcakes
Spiders and Pull-Apart Snakes
These cupcakes made to look like the Basilisk and Aragog’s acromantula children will add a terrifically spooky vibe to the Halloween dessert table.
Special Supplies Needed: witches’ teeth candy corns; black licorice Twizzlers
Flavors: chocolate, vanilla
Time to Make: 1 hour 30 minutes
Skill: Beginner
Pumpkin and Butterbeer Cupcakes
Combine the flavor of butterbeer frosting with pumpkin cupcakes for a Halloween-friendly HP treat.
Special Supplies Needed: pumpkin sprinkles
Flavors: pumpkin spice, butterscotch
Time to Make: 1 hour
Skill: Beginner
Where to Buy Harry Potter Cupcakes
Right now, the best place to order Harry Potter cupcakes is Wal-Mart! Currently, they can make a pull-apart cupcake cake that’s covered in a large edible image of Hogwarts castle with the Hogwarts school crest in the foreground. It has a black buttercreme border around the image on top of white frosted cupcakes.
They also offer individual cupcakes with your choice of icing colors and sprinkles in the various house colors. You can even get cupcakes with house color sprinkles AND edible images of the chibi Harry Potter characters!
You’ve got plenty of ideas for making Harry Potter cupcakes for your next birthday party, Halloween party, or any dang day you want because you’re a Harry Potter fan and you can do that!
My favorite is the cinnamon sugar owl cupcakes. Which ones are your favorites? What occasion will you be making these cupcakes for next? Let me know in the comments below!
I love Harry Potter. Super cute cupcake inspo.
Hi Michelle. Your cupcakes all look so beautiful an yummy. Must save this post for my son’s next birthday, he loves Harry Potter.
such an extensive post on making Harry Potter. cakes!
surely will try one of these!
This is so cute- my kiddos would love making these with me