Easy Gluten Free Butterbeer Cake

For the past few Julys, I have been participating in a fun celebration of Harry Potter’s birthday! I was sad to miss it last year since we were busy moving across the country for sabbatical on Harry’s special day, but I’m back!

This year, I wanted to try out a simple cake mix hack in order to make a butterbeer cake. I was super pleased with the results—and even better—my family thought it was amazing. Gluten-free cake mixes don’t come in many varieties. Usually I only find either chocolate or yellow, so it’s up to me to make birthday cakes a little snazzier than that since we need them to be gluten-free.

For this butterbeer cake, I started with a gluten-free yellow cake mix. I used this one, but I’m sure that any GF yellow mix will work just fine. Because I am a lazy baker (hello, cake mix hack!), I just used some canned buttercream frosting and gold sprinkles. It was perfect, but if you are a frosting connoisseur, you may want to make our own. Now I just need a kid to have a Harry Potter themed birthday party so that I have a good reason to make it again.

Gluten Free Butterbeer Cake

Ingredients:

1 gluten-free yellow cake mix

1 small (3.4 ounce) box butterscotch instant pudding

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1/2 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups water

1 tsp rum flavoring

1 tsp gluten-free vanilla

gold sprinkles

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together on medium speed for about 2 minutes.

Spread batter evenly into two 9″ round cake pans.

Bake at 325 degrees for 18-20 minutes. Baking at the lower temperature helps the batter cook more evenly and prevents the doming from happening in the cake. I just learned this trick and it works like a charm! Perfectly flat rounds that are easily stacked for a perfectly shaped cake. I love it!

Cool cake and frost. Top with golden sprinkles. Or whatever other Harry Potter-esque topping you want.

As part of Happy Harry Potter, there is a fun giveaway and I LOVE the fun things here. Just enter in the rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post to win.

Happy birthday, Harry!

See my past Happy Harry Potter posts here:

How to Make a Golden Snitch Costume

Harry Potter Book Club Ideas (includes a yummy Butterbeer recipe!)