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“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 both Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’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 that J.K. Rowling offered the muggle world with her 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.

LOOKING FOR MORE HARRY POTTER CONTENT?

I’m celebrating Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s birthdays on July 31st by filling the month with all things Potter. Check back regularly this month to see additional Harry Potter recipes and content linked HERE.