This Harry Potter Birthday Party includes a dessert table with lots of themed treats, including some butterbeer flavored items. Here, I share all of the details and recipes.
My middle daughter asked for a Harry Potter Birthday Party for her 12th birthday. She is a big fan of both the books and movies, so this seemed like a good fit. Never having read the books and only seen parts of some of the movies, I had to rely on her to help me decide on the desserts and decorations.
We consulted Pinterest for inspiration for the decor and dessert table treats. I let her brainstorm ideas, and together we decided what was feasible and cost effective. We had a hard time narrowing down the ideas because there are so many amazing Harry Potter themed parties out there.
We all loved how this party turned out! Not only were the desserts themed visually but also the flavors, with several butterbeer flavored items.
Here, I'll share all of the details of this party, including crafts, sources and recipes.
Decorations
For the dessert table backdrop, I found these Hogwarts House banners that I wanted to feature, and I thought the best way to do that was to have blocks of color to represent each of the 4 houses. Each banner features the crest of one of the houses.
I strung these up using thin curling ribbon.
Behind the banners, I hung red, yellow, green and blue disposable table cloths from hemp twine to represent each of the 4 houses. I have used this method in the past for several parties, including this Princess Birthday Party, Parisian Cafe Birthday Party, Snow White Party and Under the Sea Party.
One of my favorite decorations is the floating candles. My daughter's classroom had candles like these hanging from the drop ceiling for Halloween. I loved them so much, and they immediately reminded me of the Great Hall from Harry Potter.
I hung these candles over the kitchen peninsula where I served the food and over the dessert table. I used small clear Command clips and fishing line to hang them. These candles are so cool and were a huge hit at the party. I plan to use them to decorate for Halloween too.
I covered the dessert table with the same gold sequin tablecloth that I've used for the Wizard of Oz Birthday, Starbucks Birthday, Golden Birthday and Teddy Bear Birthday.
I covered the kids' table, the adults' table and the food buffet counter with Harry Potter disposable tablecloths.
These Harry Potter plates and napkins came together as a set. My daughter chose these because the napkins represent all 4 houses and the plates coordinated with the tablecloths.
I ordered red, yellow, green and blue snack plates from Walmart to represent the houses as well.
My sister loaned me this metal owl, and I placed it on the buffet counter next to a glass bowl filled with hard honey candies.
Rather than buy Harry Potter themed cups, I chose to use clear red Solo cups for the punch to fit more volume than a small party cup.
For this centerpiece on the adults' table, I stacked books wrapped in free printable Harry Potter book covers printed on aged antique printer paper. I also stacked some of these on the dessert table.
I placed a square mirror with the fondant hat I made for this Wicked Birthday Cake, the broom from a "Room on the Broom" toy, and a Golden Snitch Candy.
I used simple mercury glass and clear glass votive holders down the center of the table for ambiance.
Snacks
Down the center of the kids' table, I placed the themed snacks to represent each Hogwarts House.
For "Hufflepuffs," we had Pirate's Booty.
The "Ravenclaws" were Bugles.
Gummy worms represented "Slytherin."
Pieces of red licorice were labeled "Gryffindor Wands."
In the very center, I had a 3-tiered clear acrylic server for the Sorting Hat Butterbeer Macarons.
I also labeled a veggie tray, "Professor Sprout's Garden."
For the signature drink, we had Butterbeer Punch. This is a non-alcoholic butterscotch flavored ice cream punch.
Dessert Table
As I do for all of my parties, I pulled decorations I already had and ones that I have borrowed from family.
The wooden stumps belong to my sister, and I have borrowed them in the past for the Snow White Birthday Party and the Winnie the Pooh Birthday. I thought they would pull in the Forbidden Forest theme from Harry Potter.
The vase filled with coffee beans and gold twigs is a decoration that I use for Halloween and Thanksgiving every year. I also used it for the Wicked Birthday Party and just the twigs for the Snow White Birthday. I added battery operated fairy lights, like these, to the branches.
This owl is a Christmas ornament that belongs to my oldest daughter. When I was packing up our ornaments, I set it aside in preparation for this party.
Like the centerpiece on the adults' table, I stacked books wrapped in free printable Harry Potter book covers printed on aged antique printer paper.
I also used this paper to make the food labels. First, I used PowerPoint to make a black border and typed the text inside using the Harry P font. Then, I printed them on the paper, cut around the border, and mounted it to light brown cardstock using Scotch adhesive squares.
I already had these tiny witch hats from a crown and witch hat set I had purchased for the Wicked Birthday Party. I placed them around the table to represent wizard hats. The set I have is currently unavailable, but this one looks similar.
The gold chocolate coins labeled "Gringotts Gold" were from Target. I purchased them around the holidays and saved them for this party.
These Easy Golden Snitch Candies are made by placing gold glitter cardstock wings on top of Ferrero Rocher candies. They take no time to make and are like an edible decoration.
Rather than make cake pops, my daughter wanted me to make brigadeiros, which is a Brazilian fudge made from cocoa powder, sweetened condensed milk and butter. These ended up taking much less time to make than cake pops and turned out so cute!
They are basically like fudge on a stick. I used edible gold glitter to coat them and the same gold glitter cardstock wings.
To my surprise, these Chocolate Frogs went fast! They are so cute and can be customized with your favorite type of chocolate. They could also be dressed up with some luster dust or even gold leaf.
I love to incorporate some semi-homemade treats in my dessert tables to save time. The Wizard Hats are made by attaching Hershey's Kisses to fudge stripe cookies.
The Sorting Hat Butterbeer Macarons are an interactive cookie! The inside is filled with one of 4 colors to represent the Hogwarts houses.
When you bite into the cookie, you discover what house you are assigned to, much like the annual Sorting Ceremony in Harry Potter. This activity was fun for both kids and adults!
The macarons are butterbeer flavored, as they are filled with Butterscotch Buttercream.
These Nut Free Golden Snitch Macarons were a last minute addition that I came up with while making the Butterbeer Macarons. They are butterscotch flavored and completely covered in gold luster dust and edible gold glitter with gold glitter cardstock wings on top.
My daughter labeled these small broomstick candies "Firebolts" in honor of Harry's very fast broom gifted by Sirius Black. These are another semi-homemade treat that can be assembled quickly.
These Magic Wands are chocolate covered pretzel rods to represent wizard wands. Our family loves the salty sweet combo of chocolate covered pretzels, and these are very easy to make.
Butterbeer Cake
This Butterbeer Cake is made to look like a big, frosty mug of butterbeer. It consists of layers of chocolate cake with Butterscotch Buttercream. It has butterscotch drips and Vanilla Buttercream on top to mimic froth and whipped cream, sprinkled with Homemade Nut Free Toffee.
I used the cake as the centerpiece of the dessert table by placing it on a faux birch tree slice.
This is a very large cake! The birthday girl was so happy with how it turned out! It was the perfect conclusion to a great party.
Sources
Harry Potter disposable tablecloths - Amazon
red, yellow, green and blue disposable tablecloths - Walmart
Hogwarts House banners - Amazon
gold sequin tablecloth - Amazon
floating candles - Amazon
Harry Potter disposable tablecloths -Amazon
Harry Potter plates and napkins set - Amazon
red, yellow, green and blue paper snack plates - Walmart
Harry Potter FREE Printable Book Covers - Paper Trail Design
aged antique printer paper
small witch or wizard hats - similar set on Amazon
3-tiered clear acrylic server with a gold handle - Amazon
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