EEK!! Eye think there’s someone watching you! All puns aside, this cake is super fun to make – all it takes is a little trick to make it all happen. You’ll have yourself a creepy showstopper for your Halloween table in no time!

When I was planning out what kind of Halloween cakes I’d made this year, I knew I needed to have something with a lot of creepy eyeballs. I was walking around the baking section of my local craft store and I saw a little Wilton container with all different sizes of their candy eyeballs. For some reason they looked super creepy all stacked up on top of each other (a little trypophobia has a bit to do with that, I know). It made me feel a little creeped out and uneasy, but I knew it would be a really fun idea on a cake. Instead of going with a fault line version, I decided to revisit the geode trend, but instead of filling in the cutout with sprinkles or rock candy, we’d go all in with all the eyeballs I could find. I added on a bit of monster hair on top, too. Using the grass tip is super fun, and I with there were more designs to use it! It all came together very quickly on a stormy day outside, and I loved the look on my boys’ faces when it was finished.

Once again, I promise I haven’t lost my mind, and I still love to make pretty feminine cakes, but when Halloween rolls around, there are no rules and all the weirdness comes out to play. Clearly, haha.

So I left with a packet or two of eyeballs and went to work. I added stripes, grabbed a few sprinkles from my stash that accompanied the color theme I was going for, made a batch of my black buttercream, and filled a piping bag with my grass piping tip and had. a. blast. Looking to make your own version of my eyeball Halloween cake? Let’s jump into the step-by-step and get this Halloween fun started!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED: 

  • Candy Eyeballs. Large/Medium/Small. I found mine by Wilton at various baking stores as well as Walmart, Target, Smiths, etc.
  • Grass piping tip. You’ll need this for the hair on top.
  • Small round piping tip. This is for the border around the geode opening.
  • Sharp little knife. This is helpful while cutting out the shape for the opening.
  • Sprinkles. I didn’t use a mix for this one – I just found a bunch of random ones from my sprinkles stash that matched my color scheme.
  • Shaped Cake Comb. I used the HENRY comb with the larger side from cake safe. This isn’t essential, but is helpful in getting really straight stripes.
  • Cake rounds, Green/Black/White Buttercream. I used my vanilla cake recipe and vanilla buttercream recipe here. 

METHOD: 

STEP 1: ASSEMBLE. Bake, stack, and crumb coat your cake. You can use my vanilla cake recipe and make some fun black, green, white stripes on the inside, or even tint my chocolate cake black for a fun Halloween look on the inside (black velvet, pretty much). Tint your buttercream black, lime green (I used leaf green by Wilton), and leave the last bit white. You’ll need more black for your “hair” on top. After you crumb coat, freeze the cake for about 5 minutes.

STEP 2: STRIPES. Add on your white buttercream and use a cake comb (I used the Henry from Cake Safe) to make the indents on the side of the cake. Freeze for 10 minutes. Pipe in the black and green buttercream between the white stripes. Use a flat cake scraper to blend the stripes together. Freeze the cake for another 10 minutes.

STEP 3: CARVE. I know carving a cake sounds a little scary, but it’s actually super fun to do as long as your cake is cold enough. After you freeze the cake for a bit (not too long, you don’t want it to be rock solid), use a sharp knife to cut out your shape (you don’t want to cut out too much, there still needs to be enough cake to eat!). You also must remember that you’ll need enough space to squeeze the eyeballs into the cut out shape, so leave yourself plenty of room. You’ll get it, I promise! Add frosting to the exposed cake, and use your offset spatula and cake scraper to make it flat and mostly uniform (you’re covering it with eyeballs, after all).

STEP 4: EYEBALLS. Hand place the eyeballs in the crevice of the cake. I started with the largest eyeballs, then the middle size, then ended with the teeny ones. Press the eyeballs around the outside of the cake, too, along with any matching sprinkles. It takes some time, but if you have a fun Halloween playlist going, it goes by pretty quickly, or at least feels like it does!

STEP 5: Pipe a border around the eyeballs with a small circle piping tip (gives the geode opening more definition), then pipe the “hair” on the top with a grass piping tip.

You’re all set! Such a spooky, but fun cake to make for Halloween! You can do fun variations with different colors, different designs on top, or even do the sprinkle design different (or more gory) on the inside. The possibilities are totally up to your vision, and that’s what I love about all my Halloween cake designs this year.

For those who are more visual, here’s a video of me putting everything together:

As always, make sure to tag me in your creations on Instagram @bakingwithblondie. 🙂

Happy Baking!

xo,

Mandy