Halloween is just a few weeks away! What better way to celebrate than with a cake that is just as fun to make, as it is to eat? I’ve got you covered with a few Halloween cakes that are making their way to the website soon, and each are just as spooky and unique as the last!

Let’s dive right into this one, shall we?

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you know that I LOVE making Halloween cakes. It’s fun to come up with spooky and some not-so-spooky designs that are festive for the season. Each has a different technique to share, and I think could be applied to just about any Halloween you want to make next month.

This time, I wanted to apply my sprinkle-rolling technique with little striped bats peeking through. It uses my favorite skinny-stripe technique I’ve used on my Valentines heart cake and even my Rainbow Sprinkle roll cake! So when I saw these fun Halloween nonpareils from Wilton at the store this year, I knew immediately that I had a fun cake in store for you guys! It may look like there are a ton of steps, and there are, but they aren’t hard steps at all. Each is pretty simple. So if you follow my directions below, things should come together beautifully. As for the recipe, you can use my white cake and tint the layers spooky Halloween colors, or my red velvet cake is always a fun Halloween cake, too. Choose your cake flavors, bake them up, make a batch of my vanilla buttercream, and lets get started!

What you’ll need: 

  • Cake layers, vanilla buttercream, black buttercream, purple buttercream. I used my vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream for these. Black buttercream tutorial is in my Cake Confidence cookbook. 
  • Halloween Nonpareils sprinkles. I’ve learned that these work infinitely the best for sprinkle roll cakes.
  • Stripe cake scraper. I have a few of these – you can use any from Cake Safe, Wilton, Sweet Tooth Fairy, etc. Just make sure it’s a super skinny stripe for this particular cake. The Ateco one is too small, and will drive you crazy.
  • Parchment paper. Prepare to use your freehand bat-cutting-out skills!
  • Piping bags, piping tips. I used a small circle tip for the stripes, an even smaller tip for the bat outline, and my trusty Wilton 1M tip for the swirls on top.

Now that we know what you need, let’s go through the steps to making this beauty happen in your kitchen for Halloween! There’s also a video at the end to help, if you’re more of a visual learner. 🙂 

STEP 1: Stack and crumb coat your cake layers on a cardboard cake round (I have a 6″ cake, so I taped a 6″ cake board to a 8″ one). This step is essential for a later step.  Then freeze for about 5 minutes to set. You want a firm, sturdy, foundation for your cake if you’re going to be picking it up on it’s side at one point!

STEP 2: Frost your cake with it’s final layer, and use a cake comb to make grooves in the side of the cake for the stripes. Tip: the neater your grooves are, and the more filled in and perfect they are, the easier it will be for you to have neater stripes later on. I chose a really skinny stripe comb so that each bat would have stripes showing through. The thicker your stripe, the less likely you will see the two colors peeking through.

STEP 3: FREEZE YOUR CAKE. Yep, for at least 10-15 minutes. You want that layer of buttercream to firm up completely before you pipe in your second color.

STEP 4: Pipe in your second color. I used a small circle Wilton piping tip, but not the smallest one. It’s the next size up, I believe. You can also just snip your reusable piping bag at the very tip for a small opening, too, if you don’t have a small metal piping tip to use on the end. Carefully pipe in each stripe, then immediately use your cake scraper to scrape those stripes together. The first swipe around will NOT be perfect. Just keep pulling the cake scraper around, making to sure wipe off any excess buttercream, and you will notice your stripes starting to show through beautifully.

STEP 5: Cut out bat shapes from parchment paper, and place them on the side of your cake. They should stick to the frosting. Carefully run your finger along the edge of the bat shape so that little nonpareils don’t sneak through later.

STEP 6:  Place a cardboard round on the top of your cake (remember when I had you put a 6″ on the bottom?). This is where you’ll be holding your cake as you roll it in the sprinkles. Dump out 2-3 small bottles of Wilton Halloween nonpareils in a cookie sheet. Shake the sheet to make sure all the sprinkles have made an even layer on the bottom.

STEP 7: Pick up your cake and turn it sideways, holding it steady with your hands on the cardboard sides, and roll the cake in the sprinkles. The sprinkles will stick to your buttercream, but not the parchment-covered bat shapes. Repeat the roll until the entire cake is covered. Place the cake back onto it’s larger cardboard round (mine was the 8″ one).

STEP 8: Freeze the cake for 5-10 minutes. Slice off the top cardboard round, add on a touch of buttercream on top, then press more nonpareils on top.

STEP 9: Carefully pull of the parchment paper, then pipe black buttercream around the shape of the bat to make them pop!

STEP 10: With the Wilton 1M piping tip, pipe on a crown of tall buttercream swirls, then top with even more nonpareils. That’s it! You’re all done!

I can’t wait to see your Halloween sprinkle cakes! You can have fun with the shapes, too – so instead of bats, you could do moons, stars, pumpkins, witches hats, black cats… anything!

Stay tuned for more Halloween inspired cakes very soon. 🙂

As always, happy baking!

xo,

Mandy