Vegan Harry Potter Sorting Hat Cupcakes with Butterscotch Filling

posted by Britt Berlin on Oct 20, 2022 (last updated Oct 17, 2023) 2 comments »

Deliciously rich and moist sorting hat cupcakes are the perfect treat for any witch or wizard! With a quick and easy chai spiced cupcake, 5-minute butterscotch filling, and the easiest way to make the most perfect sorting hats, these Harry Potter cupcakes are sure to tell you the perfect Hogwarts house for you!

The ultimate Harry Potter Halloween Dessert Recipes

If you’re looking to celebrate the spooky season Harry Potter-style, then you must try these amazing Harry Potter sorting hat cupcakes.

These Harry Potter sorting hat cupcakes do not lie. And trust me, any witch or wizard, of any and all ages, will absolutely love finding out which Hogwarts house they’ve been chosen for.

With a vegan chai cupcake base, these dairy free Harry Potter cupcakes are hidden with each Hogwarts house color in the middle or a sorting hat, and filled with a rich quick and easy butterscotch sauce for all of the Wizarding World flavors!

Along with Hagrid’s Harry Potter birthday cake and this vegan chocolate butterbeer cake, these are the perfect vegan Halloween dessert to bring to any part or if you’re having a Halloween at home!

For more vegan cupcake recipes, check out my vegan cupcake recipes tab!

sorting hat cupcakes on a stack of books

Overview: How to make Harry Potter Sorting Hat Cupcakes

We have a few different components to these sorting hat cupcakes, but don’t worry: while it seems like a few different steps, they are very simple. The butterscotch sauce itself takes less than 5 minutes to make, and requires no stovetop whatsoever!

For these Harry Potter cupcakes, you’ll need to make:

Chai-spiced cucpakes
Butterscotch sauce
Cream cheese frosting
Chocolate covered sorting hats

The cupcakes:

These chai spiced cupcakes are the perfect complement to the butterscotch and cream cheese frosting. Naturally dairy free and no eggs required, these cupcakes are easy to whip up and quick to bake.

But don’t worry- while yes, these are vegan cupcakes, you won’t believe they are. You can swap in canola or vegetable oil (or even coconut oil!) for the vegan butter if you don’t have that on hand.

5-minute Butterscotch Sauce:

This is my all time favorite recipe because it’s MUCH faster than making homemade butterscotch, and tastes just as delicious. You need only a few pantry ingredients:

Cashew butter (swap sunflower seed butter for nut-free)
Vegan butter (or coconut oil)
Maple syrup (or coconut sugar)
Vanilla extract
Sea salt

You’ll simply whisk everything together, and set aside. That’s it!

Cream cheese frosting:

You might have guessed it- this is a vegan blog! So my cream cheese frosting is naturally vegan and dairy free. But we’re essentially using the same ingredients as a traditional cream cheese frosting- only dairy free.

Here’s what you need:

Vegan cream cheese: I recommend Miyoko’s or Tofutti
Vegan butter: Again, I recommend Miyoko’s!
Powdered sugar: I recommend Florida Crystals for vegan
Vanilla extract: Just a touch for flavor
Dairy free milk: Any non-dairy milk will work here; soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, etc!

How to make perfecting chocolate covered sorting hats every time:

This is my favorite part of the cupcakes, and essential to get you sorted into you Hogwarts house! Each sorting hat cupcake is filled with a House color:

Red for Gryffindor (my house, of course 😉 )
Yellow for Hufflepuff
Blue for Ravenclaw
Green for Slytherin

To make these sorting hats, I used chocolate sandwich cookies, vegan sugar cones (gluten free as needed), leftover cream cheese frosting, and melted chocolate.

I also recommend some toothpicks and either styrofoam or cardboard to allow the sorting hats to set without ruining the chocolate.

You’ll start by simply removing the filling of the chocolate sandwich cookies. Then you’ll carefully slice the tip of 12 sugar cones off of the ice cream cones (don’t throw these out though! You can save them, crunch them up, and top over ice cream!).

Then fill the tip of each ice cream cone with the colored frosting. Press the tip of the cone onto a sandwich cookie and chill until set.

This part is where the toothpicks and cardboard come in. Skewer a toothpick into the bottom of a sorting hat. Then dip into the melted chocolate, and twirl around. Finally, place the sorting hat with toothpick still in it into the cardboard and repeat for all of the hats.

I then place the sorting hats into the freezer to set quickly before assembling our cupcakes!

Which Hogwarts house did you get sorted into?

I’ll let you in on a secret- I got Gryffindor!! COMPLETELY NOT PLANNED! Ah, I could not be more pleased haha! Let me know which house you got into in the comments section below!

As always, I love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there!

Happy sorting!

Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!

Harry Potter Sorting Hat Cupcakes pinterest pin

If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!

Fluffy & Moist Harry Potter Sorting Hat Cupcakes with Butterscotch Filling (Easy Sorting Hat Tutorial!)

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 1 review

Author: Britt Berlin
Prep Time: 45
Cook Time: 25
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Yield: 12 1x
Category: Dessert
Method: Baking
Cuisine: American
Diet: Vegan

Print Recipe

Description

Ingredients

Scale

Chai-Spiced Cupcakes:

1 cup (240 mL) vegan buttermilk , room temperature
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp (130 g) vegan butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp (15 g) vegan yogurt or vegan sour cream
1 3/4 cup (230 g) all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour*
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1//4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Vegan Butterscotch Sauce:

1/2 cup (113 g) vegan butter, melted
1/2 cup (113 g) cashew butter
1/2 cup (120 mL) maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 pinch sea salt

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 batch vegan cream cheese frosting

Sorting Hats:

6 vegan chocolate cream sandwiches*
12 vegan sugar cones*
1 cup vegan dark chocolate, melted
Supplies:
- 12 toothpicks
- Styrofoam or cardboard box, to dry the sorting hats

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Prep: Measure out all ingredients for the cupcakes. Preheat the oven to 350F, and line a cupcake tin with 12 cupcake liners. Make sure you’ve prepared the buttermilk.
Make the cupcake batter: In a large bowl, whisk together the vegan butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and vegan yogurt. Add in the flour, spices, baking powder, and baking soda. Pour in the vegan buttermilk, and whisk again just until the wet ingredients are combined with the dry ingredients.
Fill the cupcake liners: Spoon the cupcake batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 of the way full.
Bake the cupcakes: Bake the cupcakes for 25-27 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. When baked, remove the cupcakes from the oven, and allow them to rest in the muffin tin for 10 minutes.
Cool the cupcakes: Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack to fully cool.
While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the butterscotch filling: In a bowl, whisk together all of the butterscotch ingredients. Set aside.
Prepare the cream cheese frosting: You’ll need to reserve some frosting for piping into the sorting hats. While you’re making the sorting hats in the next step, I recommend placing the remaining frosting, which we’ll pipe on top, into the fridge so that it doesn’t soften too much at room temperature. Prepare the cream cheese frosting according to instructions. Then remove about 1 cup of frosting for the sorting hats. Place into a bowl, and place the remainder of the frosting covered and in the fridge while you make the sorting hats.
Make the sorting hats:
1. Carefully remove the filling of each sandwich cookie so that you’ll have 12 chocolate cookies in total. This will be the bottom of the hat. Then carefully score about an inch from the point of the sugar cone around the cone. Carefully use a sharp knife to slice the cone so that you have the top of the sorting hat. See the photos for reference.
2. Divid the frosting into four bowls, 1/4 cup of frosting per bowl. Mix vegan red, yellow, green, and blue food coloring, one in each bowl.
3. Pipe the red frosting into the mini cone that will be the top of the hat. Pipe it into 3 of the cones. Then press one of the tops of the hats onto a chocolate cookie. Repeat for the others. Now repeat for the other colors. See photos for reference.
4. Place the filled sorting hats onto a plate and into the freezer to set for 15-20 minutes. While they’re chilling, make sure the chocolate is melted, and that you have the styrofoam or cardboard ready to go for after you dip the hats.
5. When the hats are frozen, take one hat and press a toothpick through the bottom of it. Then dip the sorting hat into the melted chocolate. Twirl to coat evenly. Then place the sorting hat skewered into the styrofoam or cardboard to fully dry. Repeat for all of the hats.
6. Place the cardboard with the sorting hats into the freezer for 5-10 minutes to set the melted chocolate.
7. Once the hats, are set, you’re ready to assemble the cupcakes! Remove the remaining frosting from the fridge, and cream it again with a hand mixer or stand mixer if needed to fluff it up.
Fill the cupcakes: Use a cupcake corer or a spoon to core about 1/2″ from each cupcake. Fill each cupcake with about 1 tbsp of the vegan butterscotch sauce.
Pipe the frosting: Fill a piping bag with piping tip with the vegan cream cheese frosting. Pipe the frosting onto the tops of each cupcake.
Top the cupcakes with the sorting hats: Top each cupcake with a random sorting hat- then you won’t know which house you’re choosing! Sprinkle with vegan decorative sprinkles if desired.
Serve and enjoy! Store any leftover cupcakes in an airtight container and in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Notes

Gluten free: I recommend using King Arthur Measure for Measure flour. It’s amazing! For gluten free chocolate cookie sandwiches, you can make my homemade vegan Oreos. For gluten free ice cream cones, use the Edward & Sons gluten free sugar cones.