"Anyway — Harry, a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."
From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing. - Rubeus Hagrid, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Today is July 31st, which means that it's Harry Potter's birthday. So, it's only fitting that I close out a month of Harry Potter recipes with a big, sticky chocolate cake just like the one Harry received from Hagrid on his 11th birthday. My version of Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake is the perfect homage to the magic and whimsy in the Harry Potter books with a gluten-free twist.
Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake is Ugly Delicious
This might be the ugliest frosting job I've ever done on a cake. Let's be honest, Hagrid's decorating skills left something to be desired. But, I was always confident that the contents of Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake were bound to be delicious, so who really cares if it's pretty? Give me a fork. This is my official go-to chocolate cake recipe for celebrations and thankfully, it can be decorated to be as pretty or as whimsical as you like. For this particular cake, I chose to honor the traditional messy and misspelled red and green icing that Hagrid decorated with on top, but left the sides fairly naked because cake > frosting in my books.
The part where I make an absurdly confident assertion about a baked good
Though I've had many tasty slices of gluten-free cake before, texture-wise you could still always tell that you were eating a gluten-free baked good. That may be fine for those who have long since gotten used to the slightly-grainy texture that most gluten-free desserts contain, but just never stacks up for the connoisseurs of a good old fashioned Betty Crocker mix. I feel confident that you could serve Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake to the most discernable of gluten-eaters and they would have no clue they were eating a totally grain-free, gluten-free, refined sugar-free cake. It's that good.
The elements of a moist and fluffy gluten-free bake
I use three types of grain-free, gluten-free flour in this cake recipe: Almond flour, coconut flour, and arrowroot flour. Are they all necessary? Yes. Atleast if you want to properly fool those pesky sweet gluten-eaters. The bulk of this cake is made up of almond flour, but the coconut flour and arrowroot flour both play important roles in giving the cake the structure and fluffiness of a traditional cake and softening the sometimes gritty texture of almond flour, so I highly recommend you don't skip either one.
This recipe contains a small amount of apple cider vinegar. Do you remember those fun volcanos from science class that were made from baking soda and vinegar? They bubbled up and created lots of fluffy froth. Using apple cider vinegar in this recipe is more or less the same concept, except it results in a fluffier cake instead of a frothy explosion.
The other element that really helps the cake obtain a great bake is coconut sugar. Though honey is my favorite refined sugar-free sweetener for some desserts, it often encourages a denser bake. Therefore, coconut sugar is my preferred sweetener in this recipe because it helps further provide structure (the fluffy air pockets you get on a traditional cake) and helps lock in moisture. I have routinely let this cake sit for 2-3 days in storage bags in the fridge before ever getting around to frost it and it was still fluffy and moist when we finally ate it.
A note for special diets
The actual cake layers on Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake are gluten-free, grain-free, refined sugar-free, and friendly for Paleo diets. However, you'll want to pay attention to the frosting adjustment if you want the entire dessert to stay completely Paleo.
I use two different frostings in this: a fluffy chocolate coconut whipped cream filling that is completely Paleo friendly and a creamy, whipped frosting on top that utilizes honey and butter. Because butter is not strictly Paleo, you can easily make a swap for palm shortening instead if you prefer.
Alternatively, if you are not following a paleo diet and want to make this extra easy, in the words of Ina "Store-bought is fine." I recently remade this cake in order to update the photos and utilized Simple Mills gluten-free vanilla frosting and chocolate frosting instead.
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Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake (Gluten-Free)
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 10 slices 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: British
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
This recipe for Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake is the perfect homage to the magic and whimsy that J.K. Rowling offered the muggle world with her books with a gluten-free twist.
Ingredients
For the cake layers:
- 3 cups almond flour
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- ¼ cup arrowroot flour
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¾ cup coconut sugar
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ½ cup coconut oil, liquid
- 1 (13.5oz) can coconut milk
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 tbsp raw honey
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
For the creamy chocolate whipped cream filling:
- 1 (13.5oz) can coconut cream, refrigerated for atleast 12 hours
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp coconut sugar
For the buttercream frosting:
- ½ cup unsalted butter (or palm shortening for Paleo), softened
- ½ cup raw honey
- food coloring dyes (omit for Paleo)
*See alternative easy frosting options in the notes below
Instructions
For the cake layers:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (177 C). Grease 3, 7-inch cake pans with coconut oil and line with parchment paper and set to the side.
- Add the almond, coconut, and arrowroot flours, cocoa powder, coconut sugar, baking soda, and salt to a large mixing bowl. Whisk dry ingredients together and then set to the side.
- In a medium mixing bowl, add the coconut oil, coconut milk, eggs, honey, vanilla, and vinegar. Whisk ingredients together until well-combined and then transfer the wet ingredients into the large bowl of dry ingredients using a spatula.
- Transfer the cake batter evenly to the three prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 24-26 minutes, or until it passes the clean toothpick test.
- Allow each layer to cool completely before frosting and assembling.
For the creamy chocolate whipped cream filling:
- Add the coconut cream, cocoa powder, and coconut sugar to a food processor or stand mixer and mix on medium-high until fluffy and well-blended. It's extremely important that your coconut cream is fully cold, otherwise it will not whip up properly.
- Store in the refrigerator until ready to use, then separate half of the mixture onto the top of the bottom cake layer and the other half onto the top of the middle cake layer.
For the buttercream frosting:
- Cream butter and honey in your food processor, a stand mixer, or a mixing bowl with a hand mixer on medium-high until the mixture lightens in color and becomes creamy.
- Separate the frosting into 2 portions: one for the cake body and one for the cake lettering. Add food coloring dye to your preferred shade of red and green in each frosting portion.
- Once the cake portions are assembled, frost the top of the cake in the red frosting and pipe the birthday message onto the cake with the green frosting. Because this is such an intentionally messy cake design, I don't even bother filling the frosting into a proper pastry bag. I add it to a ziplock and snip the tip to pipe the letters.
Notes
Nutritional information on Whip & Wander is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.
The actual cake layers on Harry Potter's Sticky Chocolate Birthday Cake are gluten-free, grain-free, refined sugar-free, and friendly for Paleo diets. However, you'll want to pay attention to the frosting adjustment if you want the entire dessert to stay completely Paleo. I use two different frostings in this: a fluffy chocolate coconut whipped cream filling that is completely Paleo friendly and a creamy, whipped frosting on top that utilizes honey and butter. Because butter is not strictly Paleo, you can easily make a swap for palm shortening instead if you prefer. Alternatively, if you are not following a paleo diet and want to make this extra easy, there are many great pre-made frosting options. I recently remade this cake in order to update the photos and utilized Simple Mills gluten-free vanilla frosting and chocolate frosting instead.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 555
- Sugar: 33 g
- Sodium: 572 mg
- Fat: 42 g
- Saturated Fat: 30 g
- Carbohydrates: 47 g
- Fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 7 g
- Cholesterol: 98 mg
Kate says
This looks and sounds amazing! Do you think it would bake up well as cupcakes? My son his theming his 11th birthday party on Harry Potter and I want to do a cake plus a dozen coordinated cupcakes. (My plan is to pop the cupcakes upside down after putting a chocolate check on them and make chocolate shell handles so they're mini cauldrons!)
Jenni says
Kate, that sounds like such a fun plan for his birthday! I have not yet baked this cake up into cupcakes so I can't give you a definitive bake time, but I imagine they would bake into cupcake size super well. Please let me know if you try it!
Danielle says
What a fun cake! You can never go wrong with a classic chocolate cake really.