To help you get started planning and designing your ghoulish treats, here are some Halloween cake design ideas. Give them a try or create your own spin-offs!
Haunted House: Bed Sheet, Novelty Tray, or Sculptured Castle
This Halloween cake can be done in many ways.
1. Cut out a sheet cake in the shape of an old Victorian house with gables. Then ice the windows, doors, and other details, including cobwebs. The ghostly shapes are easy to pipe and fill with snow white buttercream frosting. Add bats and other easy-to-channel Halloween creatures.
2. Or you can use a haunted house themed novelty cake pan. Many of these come with decorations and instructions.
3. For a really exciting Halloween cake, try a haunted castle cake! Shortbread cakes work well. Stack two or more cakes together, making sure to place backing plates between the layers. If the cake is large like a wedding cake, add cake dowels.
The towers can be created with inverted ice cream cones or paper towel rolls, shortened to fit proportionally on your cake.
For the edible towers, bake a cake in a gelatin mold and then, using a cookie cutter or glass, cut out our circular pieces to even size. String these together, and then nail the strung towers into the cake. Then ice them and design pipes and windows.
For an amazing haunted house castle, think about the details. For example, you could cut out windows and place wacky ghosts or other ghoulish figures inside (modeled from rolled buttercream, created with gum paste molds, or store-bought).
You might even want to add a moat and drawbridge! Place miniature green lights behind the turrets and under the drawbridge for an eerie glow.
A basic set of confectionery tools will help you model your Halloween cake creatures. You can find these and all kinds of decorating supplies at www.CandylandCrafts.com
If you model your Halloween cake figures out of gum paste, the creations will dry out a lot and last for years, but kids won’t like the taste very much. Marzipan is expensive, and this almond paste is not as popular with children as it is with adults. Your best bet for your Halloween cakes is rolled buttercream. It is a great tasting frosting dough that can be easily shaped or shaped.
Bride of Frankenstein – Vintage Halloween Cake
Here’s a spin-off of our lovely doll cake that’s made with a Barbie-like doll in a cake dress. Use a doll with black hair. Take your hair so that it is all puffed up and then paint the lightening streaks on each side of your hair. (For a humorous version, you could make her hair stand on end.)
Paint her face a pasty white, add makeup (search online for “Bride of Frankenstein Doll” and “Bride of Frankenstein Costume” for ideas. Cover the gown gown with smooth white buttercream and maybe add some black chandeliers and lace prints.
Another idea: You could create a 1960s Halloween doll cake inspired by Mortisha from Adam’s Family.
Halloween Jack o’ Lantern Bundt Cake
This is an easy Halloween cake for cake decorators new to cake sculpting.
Young children will love a Jack o’ Lantern cake with a cute or goofy expression, while most older children will enjoy a wacky or creepy face.
Start with 2 biscuits (butter, pumpkin, and biscuits work well). Then, after leveling and frosting the bottom of the cakes, snap them together to form the pumpkin. Top the pumpkin with smooth orange buttercream. Then, apply and/or use rolled buttercream to shape facial features. Layer green leaves on top and add a stem made of rolled buttercream or an upside-down ice cream cone, topped with green.
Last but not least, here is an important Halloween cake tip. The amount of liquid food coloring needed to create a black or dark brown frosting will likely give it a bitter taste. To avoid making a Halloween cake that tastes spookier than it sounds, try one of these ghoulish and clever tips:
· Use dyes in gel, paste or powder. They’re concentrated, so you won’t need as much.
· Start with dark chocolate buttercream, and you’ll need even less.
· Instead of black frosting, top the buttercream with crushed dark chocolate cookies and use licorice and the like for the spiders and bats.