Birthday Cake Popcorn
The ultimate birthday cake popcorn recipe from The Ultimate Kids' Baking Book is the perfect birthday party treat for kids.
Cupcakes are a fun birthday treat, but the frosting isn't always popular with little kids and can make such an enormous mess.
When my Peanut was in preschool, her school had a no-cupcakes rule for birthdays. We were allowed to bring in a homemade nut-free treat to share with the class, as long as it wasn't covered in frosting.
As a clever work-around, I decided to bring in birthday cake-flavored white chocolate covered popcorn mix and it was such an enormous hit with the preschoolers that this recipe instantly became a family classic.
In fact, this has been one of our readers' all-time favorite recipes for over 8 years!
It is so beloved, I just had to include it in our party cookbook: The Ultimate Kids' Baking Book.
Ingredients
What to know the supplies you'll need before you get started? The ingredient list is really very simple:
- Plain popcorn: You can buy a big bag at the grocery store or pop your own.
- White Chocolate Chips or Candy Melts
- Yellow Cake Mix (just the powdered mix, don't prepare the actual cake batter)
- A bag of M&Ms
- Sprinkles
Why This is the Best Popcorn Recipe
Birthday party popcorn is covered in white chocolate and tossed with sprinkles and M&Ms. You can mix and match the color theme to match your child's party, but this pastel candy and rainbow sprinkle version is our very favorite.
There are quite a few recipes for popcorn mixes out there, but our version involves actual cake mix melted into the chocolate to make it taste officially like a birthday cake!
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This makes it the perfect substitution for cupcakes.
It didn't hurt that the Peanut has always loved popcorn like crazy. It is still one of her absolute favorite treats all these years later.
Serving Tips
I always make a big batch and love to portion it out in individual serving cups so guests each get their own special treat.
When I first took those party cups to the preschool birthday party, not a single cup came back to us at the end of the day. Even the teachers got involved in the festivities because they couldn't' resist the unique party snack.
Variations
All it takes to make a fun variation on this recipe is a different set of sprinkles and different colored M&M candies.
Look at how cute a red and pink Cupid's Crunch popcorn mix could be:
For other holidays, you could try:
- Halloween Popcorn: Orange and Black candies and sprinkles
- Christmas Popcorn: Red and green candies and sprinkles
- St. Patrick's Day Popcorn: Rainbow colored candies and sprinkles
- Fourth of July Popcorn: Red, white, and blue candies with star shaped sprinkles
More Party Treats
Looking for more birthday party treats that aren't cupcakes or have messy frosting? Here are some of my favorites:
📖 Recipe
Birthday Cake Popcorn
Ingredients
- 24 cups prepared plain popcorn or 2 batches of homemade popcorn made from 1/2 cup kernels
- 3 cups white chocolate chips
- 3 heaping tbsp yellow cake mix just the powdered mix, don't prepare the actual cake batter
- 1 (11.4 oz) bag M&Ms
- Sprinkles
Instructions
- Place the popcorn in a very large mixing bowl.
- Place the white chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat on HIGH for 30 seconds and then use oven mitts to remove the bowl. Stir the chips and then continue to heat in 15-second intervals until the chocolate is melted. When the chocolate is nice and smooth, stir in the cake mix.
- Pour the chocolate mixture over the popcorn and use a large cooking spoon to stir the popcorn and coat it with the chocolate.
- Spread out the popcorn onto a large sheet of waxed or parchment paper. To avoid having the candy colors run everywhere, be sure to let the popcorn cool for 2 to 3 minutes. Don't wait too long though, or the sprinkles may not stick.
- Sprinkle the candies and sprinkles evenly over the popcorn. Let the mixture completely cool and harden.
- Break the popcorn into large pieces and serve in party cups.
HELPFUL TOOLS
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So cute! I’m going to make this for my son’s first birthday. Can I use white cake mix instead of yellow? And how would I store this overnight if I want to prepare the day before?
Can you make this a day ahead of time?
This is a great idea! Do you think that these would sit well in a sugar cone or should I just stick to the plastic cups?
So after it seized up I tried melting my remaining chocolate in the microwave and the same thing happened. So I goggled how to fix seized chocolate and it said to make sure the double boiler was turned off and not boiling, to keep the temp low, med/Low and add a bit of veg oil at a time. This worked!!!! It took a while just keep stirring. Than instead of adding the cake mix to the chocolate I added it to the popcorn mix right after I poured the chocolate on. This worked too!! Im very thankful because I was about to give up on interest recipes altogether.
Very disappointed!!!!! Tried this tonight. Got invited to last minute Easter Party. Bought everything just to make this. Chocolate seized up, and it wasn't too hot. Now its 10 at night and I have nothing to bring but a ton of popcorn.
Saw your mommy meals reposted on facebook.
If I use Orville's popcorn, how many bags would be equal to what you use?!
They even have birthday cake flavored m&ms now
We are UK and US citizens (dual nationals) living in Qatar - the little peninsula that juts off of Saudi Arabia. Thanks for this - I have a daughter who will eat popcorn and white chocolate but few other sweets (I might try something else for the M7M...gummies maybe or toffee) These will keep well in the cooler for her birthday party on the hot beaches of the Persian Gulf.
Hi, im from the uk. We have the same rules in my 7 year old class. Last year we went to the local toy shop where they sell party bag toys, about 50p each or bags of them for £1. We got them in my sons favorite type - dinosaurs last year, cars this year - they went down a treat! Everyone was happy and no allergic reactions. Xx
Found this popcorn last year on Pinterest. Made it for my kids' birthday treats, making it again this year!
I just wanted to let you know we kinda goofed up slightly. We halved the 1lb of chocolate, but actually added 8 heaping tsp to each half. So total we used 16 heaping tsp of cake mix. It was delicious and I could not imagine it with less mix!
My sister made something similar for me on Valentines Day... Pretzels on a platter drizzled with white chocolate and sprinkled with red/pink m&ms and sprinkles.
The key was that it was done in a tray. We broke off pieces to eat it, but if it's to be loose like popcorn, I think an aluminum tray would work better for mixing than a bowl.
I don't understand all the fuss in schools about homemade snacks. Are you all in the U. S.? It really doesn't matter except that it's just as hard or harder to control ingredients when something is store bought, especially when it comes to gluten and/or nuts. So many additives contain hidden gluten products. And nuts seem to be in everything these days. Anyway, this popcorn is delicious, I've tried it and I wonder what it would taste like or if it would work with Angel Food cake mix or chocolate.
Great idea for Valentines with pink and red M&Ms 🙂 Plop them on the pan in heart shapes and put them in Valentine treat bags to give out.
How long does this keep for? (Can these be made a couple days ahead of time? Or the night before?)
Maybe the teachers, like a lot of parents, don't want a bunch of sugary garbage fed to the kids several times a month. Fruit ca-bobs with dip would be just as fun. Or leave the chocolate ad cake mix out.
Just wondering if it would work to melt chocolate in microwave on low power setting?
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I wish my kids school had food free classrooms due to my sons severe allergies. A snack like this (even by only coming in contact with stuff other kids touched after eating this) would send him into anaphylactic shock. :-/. But me on the other hand may have to make this for a moms only party (at another moms house of course!)
I used ghiradelli white chocolate chips and melted in a double boiler. Wasn't quite smooth enough so I added some half and half until it smoothed out. Came out great Make sure to only add the cake mix one tablespoon at a time and blend thoroughly before adding the next tablespoon.
This was a disaster but im not discouraged. The chocolate was not enough to coat the half batch and it was not smooth enough to even think about adding the cake mix. I think ill try melted coating. The sprinkles didnt stick so Im glad I held off on the M&M's. Im determined to make this work
Help I can't get the M & Ms to stick and I need this for my son's birthday treat on Wed. Any advice?
Can I make this a day ahead of time?
At least you can make a sweet treat for your child to take to her school. Many of the schools in California are not allowing any sweets, homemade or not. One parent wanted to bring fruit kabobs in order to conform to California's Healthy Kids Act and she was turned away. The teacher suggested cute pencils instead. Count your blessings that you were allowed to make something as cute as your fun popcorn.
Wow, I love the idea and can't wait to try the recipe. I am a little disappointed at the passive aggressive comments directed at teachers and schools. I'd like to suggest you seek first to understand why those rules exist. Teachers are held responsible to keep ALL students in their classrooms (schools) safe. Homemade recipes are often delicious, but there is no way to verify ingredients and protect students with extreme food allergies. It feels awful to be the person that has to say, "I'm sorry sweetie, you can't have that delicious, adorable treat. Here enjoy this instead." Or even worse when you have to remove a child and sanitize EVERY surface in the room due to extreme allergies. Don't even get me started on the use of the Epi-pen!
While store-bought cupcakes look pretty and list ingredients, they are the WORST treat ever (along with a jug of punch!) the children never eat the actual cake and the food coloring-laden frosting goes everywhere: noses, hair, tables, carpet, in their reading books...need I continue? The jug-o-punch turns the teacher into a waitress who can NOT serve 25 drinkers at once and child #1, 2, 3 are requesting more while the teacher is pouring for child #18, and # 7 and #8 spilled theirs!
Lastly as a parent, you aren't privy to the confidential info from the school nurse about the cockroach bites on a child's skin who has then brought In a homemade treat that s/he wants to serve the class....as a teacher I want to protect your child from the treats that were homemade in a cockroach kitchen!
Talk to your child's teacher and see what s/he recommends. Teacher have seen it all. Healthy, pre packaged individual snacks always "take the cake!" Save the fun cupcakes for a family/friends party at home.
Thanks for the insight Sandy. At the time of posting, my oldest was in a Montessori preschool that actually encouraged homemade treats. They preferred homemade vs. store-bought. It was a small school of 20 some kids and they did have a handle on the allergy situation for the currently enrolled children. The no-cupcake rule was only about the mess it made which I understood and respected. Exactly why I was so excited to find this perfect substitution! I was always frustrated by the other families who chose to ignore the rule and sent store-bought cupcakes anyway.
Now the Peanut is in a public school Kindergarden and we aren't allowed to send in anything at all--store-bought/homemade or otherwise. All birthday treats have to be ordered through the cafeteria and it seems the only option is. . . wait for it. . . cupcakes. Oh the irony. Any passive aggressive tones you may have perceived are only a reflection on the complicated world we live in where kids aren't allowed to bring in something homemade to share. I'm nostalgic for the times when I was thrilled to bring in my treat for my friends when I was little. Teachers have an impossibly tough job and I'm not looking to make it any more difficult on them.
My chocolate also got a big ball once I added the cake mix. I will try to do smaller batches again IF I decide to try it again. I also thought about adding some butter to make it smooth out more..
Fun, was so excited to make it but yes, I realized once I added the cake mix, Everything got messy! I think it actually started to cook the cake! Anyways, I want to make again, maybe trying one of the suggestions of a bit of vegetable shortening or even a bit of butter... YUM!
We just sampled this from a similar recipe last night, and we used the vanilla flavored melting candies, and put in a little bit of vegetable shortening. This smoothed it out and helped keep the cake batter from seizing up. So tasty! And with all the colors of candies, the possibilities are endless for the holidays! Orange candy with chocolate sprinkles for Halloween, leaf sprinkles for fall / Thanksgiving, etc, etc 🙂
EPIC FAIL! When I added the cake mix to the white chocolate while still on the double boiler, it seized up and became like a ball of playdough!! Not sure what I did wrong. I attempted to add the stuff into the popcorn and tried to work it in! Just a disaster all the way around!
Oh No! Sorry to hear it Sonja! I wonder if the chocolate was too hot? Or maybe you added the cake mix too fast? I did mine in smaller batches, stirring it in as I went. I've also had troubles with other recipes based on the chocolate I used, I don't believe they are all made with equal amounts of fat/creaminess. Perhaps you had a drier chocolate. So hard to tell.
This morning I was pleasantly suprised to learn my daughter's school allows homemade treats! But the teacher prefers no cupcakes. This is fabulous, and I'm so looking forward to making it for my daughter's birthday next week.
You mean there is still school that you can take homemade snacks to?
What a great idea, and hershey mini chocolate chips are peanut free.
I don't have any children does anyone have a good excuse for me to try this?
Tammara, I have a friend who used regular chocolate chips in place of the M&Ms. If you could find some that are peanut-free, that would be great. Otherwise, I love Teresa's suggestion of raisins or craisins!
What about rasins or crasins since you are using white chocolate.
I always add a little bit of food coloring to the melted chocolate. It makes it easier to see how evenly coated the popcorn is, makes it a little different each time, and makes it so much more fun! Especially doing a holiday theme... one color for the whole batch, or make separate colors then mix them once the chocolate solidifies. i.e. green for St, Patrick's day, red and green for Christmas, pastel colors for Easter, etc.
Love this idea I love to send new things to my sons school!!! What do you believe would hea good peanut/tree nut free snack to replace the m&ms?
I don't know if you live in the USA or Canada, but here in Canada we have a treat similar to m&m's they are called smarties. They are peanut/tree nut free. They are my go to snack. But I bet even jelly beans or skittles would work.
This would be a Great Gluten free recipe by just switching out the cake mix for a gluten free version! I can't wait to try it!
When you said cake mix, do you mean the powder mix or the cake mix liquid with the other ingredients in it like eggs & oil?
Hi Carol, I mean the dry mix from a box, definitely not the prepared liquid mix. Just the powder part added to the white chocolate. It will combine nicely if your chocolate is heated well enough from melting.
Do you think I could substitute yellow cake mix with Funfetti mix? Or would the little bits of color in the cake mix not mix in with the chocolate?
So cute, Tiffany! We have a no homemade treats at all rule. Everything must be store-bought. Making treats for class parties and bday celebrations was one of the things I was most looking forward to doing as a mom, and I've never been able to to do it because of these stupid rules 🙁 So sad!