Candy Corn Cake & Black Buttercream recipe

I don’t think I can think of Halloween without thinking of candy corn! The sure go hand and hand, and although I personally am not a fan of the taste, I know lots of people who love them! So… whether or not you’re a fan of the actual candy corn candy, I know you’re going to love this cake! It’s just as fun and colorful on the inside as it is on the outside with the bright white, orange, and yellow, against the dark black background.

When I was planning out my Halloween cakes this year, I knew I wanted to create another version of a candy corn cake. This year, I didn’t use any actual candy corn on the cake, but I sure do have the colors and even a darling fondant version on top! Let’s dive right into this beauty!

Thin stripes inside

Inside the actual cake, I have 6x six inch cakes. So six cakes, and each are six inch cake rounds. The trick to this is that I whipped up the vanilla cake batter for my vanilla cake, and split the batter into three equal parts. The first bowl of batter I added yellow, the second I added orange, and the third I left white – all to match the typical candy corn colors. I used these coloring gels to get the perfect shade without having to use too much gel coloring. Bake them in three 6″ cake pans, let cool, then slice each cake round in half to make two skinnier rounds out of each cake round. So you’ll end up with 6 6″ rounds, two yellow, two orange, and two white. When you’re stacking your cake, alternate the inside with each color to create a pattern. Which brings me to the buttercream!

Black Buttercream 101

I know what they say. They say black buttercream = black teeth and black mouths.

Hey, that’s ONLY if you make black buttercream out of white buttercream!

Think of how much coloring you’d have to add to go from white to black. EEK! To remedy that, I always make my black buttercream out of chocolate buttercream – more specifically, DARK chocolate buttercream. Why? It’s less of a color jump to go from brown to black, than from white to black. So start with brown, and add a little bit of coloring to go to black. Also, using the darkest cocoa powder you can find is key. Also, the longer you let your buttercream sit, the more it saturates into itself, and it makes it darker and more intense.

So let’s recap:

• Start with dark chocolate buttercream and add a touch of coloring gel.
• Use dark cocoa powder.
• Let it sit for a while and the color will intensify.

While we’re at it, here’s my recipe for black buttercream:

Alright, now that we have that all out of the way, let’s talk about this cake! We’ve chatted about how to do the cake layers and how to make the buttercream, but what about those stripes, dollops, and candy corns on top? They’re just as easy as the other steps, so let’s dive right on in!

Middle Stripes

To achieve the “middle stripes” look, you’ll need to have a cake comb designed for stripes like this one. The steps to getting the stripes are:

• Crumb coat your cake, then freeze 5 minutes.
• Add on a thick layer of buttercream, then immediately use your stripe cake comb around the cake to create a clean indent. The cleaner the indents/stripes, the cleaner your cake will be.
• Freeze for 10 minutes.
• Pipe in the colored stripes ONLY in the center of the cake. Pipe in black on the remaining indents/stripes.
• Use your cake scraper to scrape away the excess. It will be messy at first, but keep applying pressure (not too much pressure) to the sides of your cake and the stripes will slowly appear. The quicker you work, the easier it will be when it comes to stripes on a cake.
• That’s it! Stripes take a little practice, so be patient with yourself. Once you get it, you’ve GOT IT!

Hershey Kiss dollops on top

The spike dollops on top are named Hershey kiss tops because my oldest son called them that when he saw them at first! I don’t blame him, they look completely the same! The trick to them is having the right buttercream consistency, and lifting up after applying a little pressure initially. You can always practice on a cake board before doing it on the actual cake, if that helps. You’ll need a Wilton 1A tip. It’s a large circle tip that doesn’t require a coupler in your piping bag. I have three of them, so it was easy to just fill three piping bags – one with white buttercream, one with yellow buttercream, and one with orange buttercream – all leftover from the center stripes I did before on the sides of the cake.

Squeeze a little bit while the piping tip is perpendicular to the cake, then pull right up quickly to create the spike on top. Switch colors and repeat until you’ve gone around the entire rim of the cake. That’s it!

Faux candy corns

This one was really fun! Instead of just sticking on regular candy corns, I decided to make my own with rolled fondant! It’s super easy and I think are much cuter than regular candy corns.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Fondant. You don’t need very much, just a little pack will do. I do pre-made store-bought fondant. It’s easier, and will save you a lot of time.
• Gel coloring. You’ll need orange and yellow.
• Rolling pin.
• Pizza roller or knife.

How to do it:

1. Split the fondant into three pieces. Dye one piece orange and one piece yellow with one drop of gel coloring for each.
2. Roll the three pieces of fondant into three separate logs. Line the logs up in the right order (yellow, orange, white) and roll the three longs simultaneously together into a long strip. When it’s super flat and long, use the pizza cutter to cut triangles in the shapes of candy corns. Half of the triangles will come out backwards, and the other half will be right. Use the correct ones on your cake, haha.

And that’s it! There’s a couple steps to this cake, but I feel like it all ties together beautifully and really creates such a classy statement piece – that also tastes pretty dang good, too!

I hope you have fun making this fun candy corn Halloween cake, and if you do, I’d love to see it! Make sure to tag me @bakingwithblondie #bakingwithblondie on Instagram.

As always, happy caking!

xo, Mandy