It’s nearing October 31, and ghouls and witches will be distracting you from your studies. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, so you don’t have to feel a bit frightened about stepping away from the books. Participate in—or host—a party or haunted house, and enjoy the break. Try one of these Halloween cakes ideas to share. Whatever recipe or mix you choose for the cake, you can follow these quick decorating ideas to create a spooky snack.
Alarming Graveyard Cake
Bake a rectangular or square cake. Frost the cake with chocolate icing. If you wish, sprinkle on green coconut for grass. Make grave mounds with crushed chocolate cookie dirt. Break Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies in half to make gravestones. Use brown or black tube icing to write on or decorate the stones. Finally, add candy bones or skulls, if you can find them.
Spooky Spider Web Cake
Bake a round cake. Frost the cake with white or chocolate icing. Use white tube icing to create a spider web (orderly) or cobweb (more random) effect over the surface of the cake. Add candy spiders, if you can find them. If not, create your own by using chocolate candies or cookies for the bodies. Then use brown or black tube icing to make the legs (or the whole spiders).
Eerie Eyeball Cake
Bake any shape cake. Frost the cake as desired. Buy regular-sized and mini Oreos, and twist off the tops. (Set the tops aside to eat later, or crush them to use in another dessert.) Add brown M&M candies for irises, or use brown or black tube icing to squirt them on. If you like, you can use red tube icing to create bloodshot eyes. Then add the Oreo eyes all over the cake, either in pairs or singly for a monster effect.
Bloodcurdling Crime Scene Cake
Bake a rectangular or square cake to represent a room or outdoor crime scene. Frost the cake with chocolate icing. Use white tube icing to make a chalk outline of a dead body. Use red tube icing to create a pool of blood. Finally, add a wide strip of yellow icing around the border of the cake to represent crime scene tape. If you’re the extra-credit type, add in room elements (or parking lot lines) and a weapon for a full forensic diagram.
Unnerving Ouija Board Cake
Bake a rectangular cake to represent the game board. Frost it as desired. Search for an image of a Ouija board online. Use contrasting tube icing to recreate the letters, numbers, and other elements of the board. If you can find a real Ouija board, borrow the pointer, wash it, and add it to the cake for a more realistic effect. Just be sure to tell everybody it’s not edible!
Spine-Chilling X-Ray Cake
Bake a rectangular cake to represent an x-ray film. Frost it with dark chocolate icing. (If you can find black icing, that’s even better.) Turn the cake to a portrait orientation. Pull up an image of an x-ray online. Use white tube icing to draw a skeleton on the cake.
Intimidating Ghost Cake
Bake any shape cake, and use any frosting. Put white frosting in a zipper-lock plastic bag, and close the seal. Cut off a corner of the bag so that the cut is a little longer than your preferred diameter for the ghosts. Squeeze out numerous large blobs of white icing. You should end up with tall, pointy ghosts. Add as many as you can to cover the cake. Use brown or black tube icing to add eyes (and mouths, if desired) to each ghost.
Terrifying Twilight Zone Cake
Bake a square or rectangular cake to represent a TV screen. (Yes, screens were square back in the day!) Use dark chocolate icing (or black icing, if you can find or make it) to frost the cake. Do an online image search for “Twilight Zone”. Using white tube icing, recreate the lettering for the show’s title, and fill in the blank space with dots for stars. (If you can find them, use silver dragees, or metallic balls, to make the stars. However, be sure to remove them before serving the cake, as they’re not considered safe to eat.) Add the other signature elements, such as the spirals, eye, and so forth.
Best of all, there’s no scratch baking required for these clever cakes. Ain’t nobody got time for that! You can use boxed cake mix and prepared icings. So you’ll be off to your party in no time — or make the decoration effort a pre-party activity to share with friends.
