If you're new to cake decorating or cake sculpting, you'll find the Jack O' Lantern cake is fun and easy. And, if you're already experienced, you will have all the more fun by adding intricate details. Either way, this Jack o' Lantern Halloween cake is sure to light up faces at your next Halloween party.
Jack o' Lantern Cake Instructions
Before you whip up a batch of buttercream, take out a piece of paper and sketch some Jack o' Lantern faces. If you have kids at the house, enlist their help. Searching "Google Images" for Jack o' Lantern will also deliver lots of ideas. Once you've narrowed down your favorites to a final selection, practice drawing it to make the piping easier.
Ready? Here we go! 1. Bake 2 Bundt cakes. Coincidentally, pumpkin works like a charm for a Halloween sculpture cake because of its firmness (see recipe below). Butter cake works well too. 2. After releasing and cooling the 2 cakes, level the bottoms. 3. Ice the bottoms with orange buttercream (non crusting is best for this project). Place one upside down, and the other on top, so the iced bottoms fit together. 4. Now, cover the cake with orange buttercream. As you smooth your icing, you can work with the natural indentions left by the Bundt pans that mimic the vertical lines on a real pumpkin. 5. Using the orange buttercream, pipe the outlines of the facial features. If you make a mistake, just smooth it and start over. 6. Now for the fun part! Here are a few ideas for creating the details of your Jack o' Lantern's face.
a. Fit an icing bag with a small star tip and fill with chocolate buttercream. Fill in the eyes, nose and gaps between the teeth. b. After completing the step above, add details such as pupils to the eyes with icing candies, like M&M's and black licorice. c. To make your Jack o' Lantern glow, use yellow gel instead of chocolate buttercream (remember not to cover the teeth and other places that would be left intact in a real Jack o' Lantern). d. Instead of piping facial features, bring Jack to life by modeling eyes, nose, teeth and any other features you want to add (eyebrows?) with rolled butterceam icing or marzipan.
7. Just like a real Jack O' Lantern your Bundt o' Lantern will have a hole in the top. Here are a few ways you can put the lid on Jack.
a. Cover an ice cream cone with green or chocolate buttercream and using icing, adhere this upside down over the hole in the top. Then using a large leaf tip, pipe a few green leaves around the top.
b. Model the stem and leaves with rolled buttercream.
c. Save just enough batter from the recipe below to make a cupcake. Trim it for the stem shape you want and adhere with icing to the top.
And here's your pumpkin cake recipe!
Halloween Pumpkin Cake
Note: This pumpkin cake makes a great treat for grown-ups too, and it's even more devilishly delicious with a buttercream and chopped nuts icing.
Preheat oven to 350? F. Grease and flour 2 10-inch Bundt pans. Blend the pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs. Sift remaining ingredients into a separate bowl. Mixing as you add it, spoon the pumpkin mixture into the dry mixture. Blend well. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middles comes out clean (around an hour and 15 minutes). Allow cakes to cool in pans for 5 minutes. Release, and after completely cooled, decorate.
Serving Tip: This is even better tasting and easier to work with after mellowing overnight, covered in the refrigerator.
The Homemade Pumpkin Cake recipe is adapted from "Cake Decorating Made Easy!" Here's what one reader wrote about our Video Books:
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If you liked these ideas, you're gonna love our Thanksgiving Cake article!
Last but not least, here's one more tip. The quantity of liquid food coloring needed to concoct Halloween brown and black will bring a bitter flavor to your buttercream. Here's what you can do to keep the ghoulish elements in the design and out of the icing:
- Instead of liquid food coloring, opt for the more intense gel or paste forms. Can't find these locally? Try CandylandCrafts.com - Use chocolate for brown and start with dark chocolate for black (and you won't need as much black food coloring). - Skip the chocolate and food colorings, and use instead candy and cookies. String black licorice works great for outlining. Crush, dark chocolate cookies or crumble dark chocolate cake to use to fill in large areas, like around Jack's teeth.
Happy Halloween Cake Making!
The original jack-o-lanterns in Ireland and Scotland were usually made out of turnips, and smaller than the pumpkin version that has become the standard Halloween design in America. The great thing about using a pumpkin is that it is easier to carve, and you have so much more scope to design an impressive face on the side of a pumpkin. Pumpkins come mostly in either grey or orange. It is the orange color that has become most associated with Halloween.
When choosing a pumpkin to use as a jack-o-lantern, make sure that it is not overly ripe. If a pumpkin has strong smell or sounds hollow when you tap on the outside of it, it is too ripe to be used. Don't forget to seriously consider the color, shape, and overall condition of the pumpkin when making your selection. You want to pick the very best pumpkin you can for your jack-o-lantern. And, after picking one out, don't hold onto it by its stem, since it could snap apart and leave you with a squashed pumpkin instead of a jack-o-lantern.
The first steps in turning a plain old pumpkin into a scary Halloween jack-o-lantern are cleaning it, drying it, and cutting off the top part where the stem is located. Then, get all of the soft flesh and seeds out of the pumpkin. You will want to be left with just the thick surface of the pumpkin flesh. Since you need to be able to place a short candle inside the pumpkin, it is also important that you make sure that you leave the bottom of it flat, stable, and reasonably smooth.
Removing all the pumpkin innards is done most easily with a big spoon. After you do that, you can move onto the face carving process.
Some people grab a kitchen knife at this point, and start hacking away. There is a better approach. First, work on your design. You can buy stencils with intricate jack-o-lantern faces, or you can design your own on a sheet of paper with a pen or pencil. You might even find one you could print from the internet. A great design makes all the difference to how your jack-o-lantern will look, and will likely be a lot more detailed than something you work on as you go.
Once your paper design is complete, tape it onto the pumpkin in the position you want it. Then, punch lots of small holes with a sharp instrument in the pumpkin flesh, following your pattern.
When you take the paper off, your design will be outlined on the pumpkin and very easy to carve out exactly how you want it.
Both Samantha Mitchell & Phil Sikes are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Samantha Mitchell has sinced written about articles on various topics from Cooking Tips, Wedding Cake and Cooking Tips. Samantha Mitchell, Co-AuthorCake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2The World's First Cake Decorating Video BooksSign up for for fantastic cake decorating tips, tricks and secrets of the pros at. Samantha Mitchell's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.
Phil Sikes has sinced written about articles on various topics from Babies, Halloween Costumes and Family Concerns. Now's the time to start planning your for this year. Don't wait until it's too late and the good ones are all sold out. Get lo. Phil Sikes's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.