Alright, I know, I know… this one is all kinds of EEEK!!! But each year when I create my Halloween cakes, I LOVE doing at least one gory cake. This year, I knew I wanted to do something extra spooky, and starring teeth, and the vault line trend.

Let’s just say, my little boys were extra nervous when they saw this little guy on my counter a few weeks ago!

This cake looks a little daunting, but I promise it was really quite easy to make. All it takes is a few little steps, and it will come together. This cake doesn’t require any special tools, just your usual cake decorating equipment, cake  rounds, buttercream, and a little bit of fondant.

What you’ll need:

  1. Cake Rounds & Buttercream. I baked up three 6″ cake layers for this cake. You can do vanilla and then dye them different Halloween colors, red velvet, or dark chocolate cake layers dyed black. I used black and red buttercream. For the black buttercream, my recipe is in my Cake Confidence cookbook, and for the red buttercream, I used my vanilla buttercream tinted red with Wilton gels and a touch of blue and black for that distinct blood color. I also used Red-Red Wilton gel to make the blood around the teeth. I mixed some of it with clear vanilla extract, and some I used straight on the teeth for a more goopy texture.
  2. Fondant: I know you don’t want to hear this… but I individually shaped each fondant monster tooth! It was actually super easy. I shaped them while I was helping my son with his homework, haha. Roll the fondant into a large skinny log, then slice little 1/4 inch pieces off the log. Roll one end of each piece into a skinny sharp end. Let all the monster teeth harden overnight (at least) until they are stiff enough to not move at all.
  3. Wilton 6B Tip: For the design on top, I added black to the center of the piping bag, then surrounded it with black. The 6B tip makes a really cool texture, and that little black tip at the end turned out really spooky for this cake. I love it!
  4. Paint Brush: Make sure it’s a clean one from your baking cabinet, and not one that the kiddos used for their art projects, haha.
  5. Cake scraper: This is probably a given, but you’ll need a cake scraper for the fault line effect on the sides.

Now that we’ve chatted about what we’ll need, lets go over how to make this little guy!

STEP 1: Stack and crumb coat your cake, then freeze for about 5 minutes.

STEP 2: Add on RED buttercream around the center band of the cake. This will be what peeks-through the “fault line” of the cake. Freeze for about 5 minutes. You don’t want this layer to smear when you add on the black, and making sure it’s frozen helps a lot.

STEP 3: Add your black buttercream to your piping bag, then pipe the black buttercream in a thick layer above and below the red fault line of the cake. Use a cake scraper to smooth out the black buttercream, without smearing it into the red layer. You can leave the top rough, or smooth out the top edge. It’s up to you! I left it rustic on purpose for this guy so he’d be a bit more ragged.

STEP 4: While the black buttercream is wet, press in the fondant teeth above and below on the rim of the black buttercream. The teeth should be stiff after drying out for a couple days.

STEP 5: It’s time to get a little… messy! This is what really brings the cake to life. Mix a bit of red gel coloring with your clear extract and use a paintbrush to add & speckle the “blood” onto the teeth. If you want a more gory blood-like texture, use more coloring and less extract, or even use it straight out of the coloring gel (you may want to warn your guests so that their teeth don’t look just like these ones when they’re through, although I don’t know many people who will actually eat hardened fondant).

STEP 6: Pipe on the buttercream with the 6B tip in the way I outlined in the instructions above.

That’s it!!! Not too bad, eh? Instead of hiding or using my cake lifter to separate them, I left the 8″ cardboard round around the bottom of the cake because I loved the way the blood splatter looked against the white at the bottom.

And that’s it! Hopefully no one has nightmares after making this one ;). It sure is fun to make, and will be quite the centerpiece at your Halloween spread this October!

Here’s a video of the process:

Can’t wait to see your cakes, and as always, don’t forget to tag @bakingwithblondie on your account so I can see all the fun!

As always, happy baking!

xo, Mandy