Easy Halloween cake designs take the pressure off having to plan and prepare more elaborate options amid the chaos of the holiday. They taste just as good as fancier designs, but it's simple to prepare and bake them in just a fraction of the time.
Simple Halloween Cake Ideas
Whip up the cakes listed below in mere minutes, with plenty of time left over for trick-or-treating. Though it's easy to make all of the cakes with batter from scratch of any flavor, you can save even more time by using a mix, buying pre-made frosting, and doing prep work (such as tinting the frosting) ahead of time.
Orange-Frosted Bundt Cake
This cake makes for a lovely presentation and is a bit more subdued than the traditionally garish Halloween designs.
- Prepare a chocolate cake mix according to directions on the box, or mix up a homemade chocolate batter that makes enough for a standard 9 1/2-inch, 6-cup Bundt pan.
- Lightly coat the pan with cooking spray, or brush it with softened butter and sprinkle it with flour.
- Bake the cake, and let it sit in the pan for a few minutes to cool.
- Unmold the cake from the pan onto a decorating platter or cake stand. Let the cake cool completely.
- While waiting for the cake to cool, tint a batch of white buttercream or cream cheese frosting with gel color. Start with one drop of red and four drops of orange. Mix in the color thoroughly, and add more if necessary.
- Apply a crumb coat of frosting to the cake, and freeze it briefly until the frosting firms.
- Coat the cake with a thicker layer of frosting before serving.
Easy Spiderweb Cake
You will need a round cake and two contrasting colors of icing.
- First bake your cake, allowing the layers to cool entirely before you frost them.
- Frost your cake normally in your primary icing color - for example, orange. If you are making a layer cake, you can fill it with jam, custard or just regular icing. Once your layers are together, frost the sides of the cake first, then the top.
- Then, pipe your other icing color into concentric circles, starting from the center and going outward.
- Use a toothpick or chopstick to drag through the piped icing at intervals, forming a web design.
- Alternately, you can just pipe an entire spider web design onto the cake.
- Place plastic spider decorations on the top or sides, or make a spider out of an oreo and black licorice.
Pumpkin Cake
The taller this cake is, the better it will look, so consider making it three layers or higher for the best visual effect.
- Bake and frost a standard 8 or 9 inch round cake that is several layers tall. Cover the cake with bright orange buttercream frosting or cream cheese frosting.
- Fill a pastry bag with dark chocolate frosting, and use a small round decorating tip to pipe on the outlines of facial features. Add eyes, a nose and a mouth.
- Use a flat spatula and more dark-chocolate frosting to fill in the features.
- Pipe a thick green stem on top of the "pumpkin" before serving.
Quick Halloween Decorations
Add some flair to an easy Halloween cake with one or two quick decoration ideas.
- Try popping on a pre-made, edible fondant or sugar paste topper.
- Sprinkle the cake with orange or black sugar crystals.
- Grate a dark chocolate bar and scatter some of the gratings over the top and sides of an orange cake.
- Accent a dark-chocolate cake with orange candy corn, or stick black licorice or black wafer candies on an orange cake.
- Make a quick graveyard cake by sprinkling frosting with crumbled chocolate cookies and sticking mini candy bars in the frosting to serve as "graves."
Easy Is the Way to Go
Whether you're a decorating pro or a beginner, easy Halloween cake designs make creating a ghoul-iscious dessert truly a piece of cake. Keep your design simple and have some fun with it!
