Harry Potter cupcakes recipe

Discover how to decorate Harry Potter cupcakes with this thorough recipe and guide. 

If you don’t want to use store-bought cupcakes, follow our easy cupcake recipe first. They take 20 minutes to bake and can be baked the day before if you like. The Harry Potter decorations take a little time and patience to create but they look very effective and will impress the Potterhead in your life. Before making the recipe, be sure to read our tips to find out exactly what equipment is needed. 

Ingredients

• 12 plain cupcakes
• 110g unsalted butter
• 500g of icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp milk
• Yellow food colouring paste

For the decorations (makes 2 of each decoration):

• 200g red ready-to-roll icing
• 200g yellow ready-to-roll icing
• 200g black ready-to-roll icing
• 200g chocolate ready-to-roll icing
• 50g white fondant icing
• Red and gold edible glitter (optional)

Method

1. First make the decorations, so you have them ready to go once the cakes are iced.
2. To make the lightning bolts: With the paper and pen, draw a lightning bolt about 5cm size and then cut it out with the scissors. Use this as the template and place it on a sharp knife to cut the shapes out of the 100g of red icing. Cover in red glitter (optional). Leave on a large drying sponge to set.
3. To make the snitch: Roll out some yellow icing and cut into 2. Make two small balls from half of the icing. Cut 4 wing shapes out of the remaining yellow icing. You can add wing patterns with a toothpick. Stick the wings onto the sides of the balls with a brush of water. Dust with edible gold glitter and leave to set on the drying sponge.
4. To make the scarves: Roll 100g of yellow icing into a long sausage shape. Using really thin strips of red icing, lay them over the yellow icing, then with a rolling pin roll the red and yellow together. With your sharp knife, cut 2 long scarves and cut the ends to make scarf tassles. Cross the ends of the scarf over and leave to set on the drying sponge.
5. To make the glasses: Roll 100g of black fondant out and cut 4 large circles out with the 3cm circle cutter. Use the 2cm circle cutter to cut holes in the centres to make the glasses. Cut a small piece out of the remainder of the black fondant for the bridge of the glasses and stick between the 2 circles with a brush of water. Leave on the drying sponge to set.
6. To make the broomsticks: Take 75g of the chocolate fondant and cut int into 2 pieces. Mould 2 broom ends from these pieces then texturize them with a sharp knife. Roll 2 long sausage shapes with the remaining chocolate fondant for the broom handles and bend in the middle. Stick the broom handles to the brushes with a touch of water. Roll two tiny strips of yellow fondant stick across the top of the brooms and leave to set on the drying sponge.
7. To make the spell book and wand: Using the white fondant, form two book-like blocks and texturise the edges with a sharp knife to form the pages. Then, using 50g of the chocolate fondant, roll out and cut to the size of the blocks and wrap around for the book cover. Using the letter embossers, emboss ‘book of spells' on the front and leave on the drying sponge to set. For the wand, use the remaining 50g of chocolate icing and roll 2 long thin wands with a point at one end. You can texturise the handle with a toothpick and to give it some magic sparkle, brush the end with water and dip it into gold glitter.
8. To make the buttercream and decorate the cakes: Add the butter, icing sugar, vanilla extract and milk to a large mixing bowl, then beat for about 4 minutes with an electric whisk. Add a little yellow food colouring paste and mix in well. You want a pale, creamy yellow. Add a little more food colouring if needed and mix again. Fill a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle with the icing. If you don’t have a plain nozzle or piping bag, use a freezer bag with one small corner snipped off. Twist the top of the icing bag to remove any air.
9. Pipe plain swirls onto the cupcakes by starting at the outside edge of the cupcake and working your way inwards and upwards into a swirl. Twist the top of the piping bag each time to keep the twist at the top of the icing. This stops you getting air bubbles. Place a decoration on each of the cakes.

Top tips for making Harry Potter cupcakes

Making the fondant cake toppers may take you more or less time depending on how experienced you are. To make sure you don't need to rush, we recommend making the toppers the day before you want to serve the cakes.

For the golden snitch you could use a white chocolate truffle instead of the fondant icing and you might like to use a pretzel stick or chocolate finger for the broom handle. Have fun experimenting with what ready-made treats you can use to make the designs even easier to create. 

To create a professional icing base for your decorations to sit on, we recommend piping the buttercream onto the cupcakes. This set from Amazon includes a reusable piping bag and six different nozzles. 

Silicone Piping Bags, 6 pcs Stainless Steel Nozzles Set - View at Amazon 

Simply rinse the bag in warm soapy water and then leave to air dry. The kit also includes a little brush to help thoroughly clean the nozzle.

Read our Harry Potter food ideas if you want more inspiration for a Harry Potter party. You could also use our chocolate cupcake recipe and then top them with the decorations from this guide. Our guide on cake decorating tools might provide more insight into the equipment that can make decorating easier and quicker.