Easy Halloween Cake Decorating Ideas

Last Updated on March 14, 2024 by Kimberly Crawford

A decorated cake will look wonderful on the center table of any Halloween party. It doesn’t have to be a complicated process to make a Halloween cake look good.

Parties are largely about the food and having great treats for the guests will determine the success of the celebration. Halloween is no exception; it’s the one day of the year where food preparation has no limits.

A wonderful dessert is a great way to make sure the party is a hit. An excellent way to accomplish this is by having a greatly decorated Halloween cake.

Baking a cake is not very hard, all that is needed is a basic cake recipe and a yummy filling. Once that is done then comes the fun part of decorating the cake.

Let’s start with the cake recipe, tailored for Halloween with some added coloring, then following that there will be three easy ideas for Halloween cake decorating.

1. Basic Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup butter (or applesauce equivalent)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (or brown sugar)
• 1 egg
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• Dash of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• A few drops of orange food coloring – or yellow and red (enough to make cake mix a nice orange color)
• Dark chocolate filling or Nutella

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the sugar, butter, eggs and milk in a large bowl until creamy. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla, then mix well with a whisk or an electric beater. Mix the orange food coloring into the batter, a couple of drops at a time, until a Halloween orange is achieved. Pour into buttered cake pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes.
2. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes then take out and lay on a metal rack until completely cooled. Slice the cake horizontally in half and spread the dark chocolate or Nutella filing thickly on the bottom layer, place the top layer back on.

The cake is now ready to be decorated!

2. Frankenstein Face Cake

Image from iambaker, familycircle, blovelyevents, and cakesbyjoanne

Ingredients:

• Green, white and brown (chocolate) frosting (green can be made using white frosting and food coloring)
• Chocolate icing (in a tube)
• Plastic button eyes (available at most craft stores)
• 2 extra big metal screws

Instructions:

1. Cover the cake with the green frosting. Using a piping bag draw some uneven ‘bangs’ with the brown frosting. Then draw a thick ‘uni-brow’ right under the bangs. Place the two button eyes close together under the eyebrows.
2. For the nose use two black dots. Next, for the mouth, draw a big filed in rectangle with the white frosting. Then, use the chocolate icing to draw the lines for the teeth. Draw a couple of scars on each side of the face also with the chocolate icing and, lastly, insert a screw on each side of the Frankenstein cake face.

3. Graveyard Cake

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Ingredients:

• Brown frosting (or white frosting with food coloring)
• Crumbled chocolate cookies
• Lady finger cookies (or any vanilla cookie that has a long shape)
• Candy corns and candy pumpkins
• Chocolate icing
• Cool Whip or whipped cream

Instructions:

1. Cover the cake with brown frosting, and then spread the crumbled chocolate cookies on top of it (like ‘dirt’). Then, write messages such as ‘RIP’, ‘Here Lies Jason’ or draw simple crosses on the long vanilla cookies and scatter on top of cake to make ‘tombstones’. Sprinkle the ‘ground’ with the candy corns and pumpkins.
2. Use the Cool Whip to spray little ghosts on the ‘graveyard’ and draw the eyes and nose with the chocolate icing.

4. Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Cake

Image source from bakearama, landolakes, and bettycrocker

Ingredients:

• Orange, green and yellow frosting (or make your own by using white frosting and food coloring)
• Chocolate icing

Instructions:

1. Draw the eyes, nose and mouth of the Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin with the yellow frosting on the cake. Outline them with the chocolate frosting. Cover the rest of the cake with the orange frosting using a knife to get in-between the small spaces.
2. Draw the pumpkin lines with the chocolate icing from top to bottom in an arc motion.Then, using the green frosting draw some leaves on top of the pumpkin; an optional stem can be placed on top as well, using a thick curved stick or anything similar.

5. Halloween witch unicorn cake

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6. Spider

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7. Haunted House cake

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8. Black Velvet Spider Cake

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9. Bloody cake

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10. Halloween Witch Birthday Cake

11. Strawberry Ghosts

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These three cakes are very easy to make and will delight all party guests. They are not complicated and will leave plenty of time for the rest of the party decorating.

Happy Halloween!