What’s the one thing that every Halloween party needs? Cake! And if you really want to impress everyone, you’ll serve one of the scary Halloween cakes on my list. Some of these are just gross – exactly what you want at your party.
15 Scary Halloween Cakes That’ll Totally Freak Out Your Guests
1. Little Shop of Horrors Cake
How cool is this cake? It’s a little more involved than some other cakes on this list, but so worth the effort.
To start, you’ll need a multi-layer chocolate cake with white frosting. To create the Venus fly trap’s mouth and tongue, you’ll need to:
- Cut out a half-moon shape from the top of the cake (check the video to see how this is done).
- Fill the cut-out with chocolate frosting.
- You can add a fake tongue or make one out of fondant.
- Make the teeth out of fondant and add them to the mouth.
- Add red blood glaze icing to create dripping blood from the mouth.
- Finish things off by adding cherries to the top of the cake.
The video in the Pin above will walk you through each step of making this freaky cake.
Related: 17+ Spooky Halloween Cakes That’ll Beat Any Bucket Of Candy
2. Spiderweb Cake
A gorgeous but scary cake that will make your guests cringe a little. The good news is that this cake is delicious.
Sprinkle of This shares how to make this cake one step at a time. It starts with a four-layer vanilla cake topped with purple-colored vanilla buttercream frosting. You can make the frosting with a purple gel food coloring. If you want a darker purple, add some cocoa powder to the recipe.
The spiderweb design is made out of marshmallows. First, heat the marshmallows and let them cool for about a minute. Use your fingers to stretch it out – it will look just like a spiderweb. Stretch it around the cake, and repeat until you’re happy with the look.
To finish this cake, you can add plastic spiders or even draw another spiderweb on top of the cake with a pipe.
3. Bleeding Love Cake
This cake bleeds, literally. To make this impressive and gross cake, start with a four-layer red velvet cake. Go ahead and frost the cake and decorate the top. If you’re pressed for time, you may be able to find a pre-made cake in a local bakery.
Next, cut a hole in the top middle of the cake. Add a thin layer of white frosting. Then, fill with strawberry syrup. Cover the hole with a white chocolate disc, and finish the whole thing off with another thick layer of frosting. Smooth it out.
Finally, use a knife to stab the hole in the cake and splatter the “blood” everywhere.
4. Horror Ice Cream Cake
This is one of those scary Halloween cakes that your guests may be afraid to eat. Chef Club shares how to make this crazy cake, which looks like it has broken glass on top.
To make this, you’ll need to:
- Layer cake and ice cream.
- Create a cavity in the center of the top cake layer.
- Carefully insert a balloon filled with red food coloring.
- Cover the cake with white buttercream frosting and transfer to the freezer to set.
- Melt some red candy melts to create the bloody handprints.
- To make the broken glass, you’ll need to break isomalt and arrange the pieces on the top of the cake.
- Finally, carefully stab a knife into the center of the cake to break the balloon and spill the “blood.”
Serve and enjoy the bloody surprise inside the cake.
5. Zombie Cake
Here’s a creepy cake that will freak everyone out. For the most part, this cake is simple and straightforward to make.
The zombie fingers are the most complicated part. You’ll need to make them out of fondant and a mix of other ingredients, like tylose powder, cocoa and black food coloring.
Find Your Cake Inspiration has a full tutorial on how to make this cake, including a video 👇
6. Skull Cake
This cake will have everyone talking. From the white chocolate skulls to the bloody “goo,” this cake is impressive and delicious.
The cake itself is red velvet, but if you prefer, you can bake a chocolate cake. You’ll need some skull molds to make the white chocolate skulls on top of the cake. The blood drips are made from a mix of corn syrup and red food dye.
The Scran Line shares how to make this 6-layer cake step by step.
7. Cauldron Cake
This is one of my favorite scary Halloween cakes on this list. It will take some time and creativity to make, but your guests will be so impressed by it.
The cauldron is made out of a four-layer cake with layers of green frosting in between. You’ll need to make each layer a little bit smaller than the next to create that cauldron shape. Make sure that you’re also cutting the center of each layer out to make this a true cauldron.
Next, start filling the center cavity with green frosting and the outside of the cauldron with black frosting. Add electric potion green gelatin to the center (they look like glass shards), and then pour a green gelatin mix over the crumbles until the entire center of the cake is filled with gelatin.
Top the gelatin with gummy eyeballs and sprinkles – hurry and do this step before the gelatin sets.
Let the cake chill for three hours before cutting and enjoying.
Chel Sweets has a great tutorial on how to make this cake.
Related: 25 Mini Halloween Desserts That’ll Creep Out Your Guests
8. Brain Cake
Here’s a cake that will really freak people out. The base of this brain cake is made from red velvet cake. To make the brain folds, you’ll need to roll some fondant into tubes and layer them on top of the cake.
To make the brain bleed, add cherry jam.
9. Chocolate Skull Cake
Scary Halloween cakes rarely look this scary. A chocolate skull cake is one of my favorites, and you’ll need an extra-large skull mold for this recipe, like this one. Chocolate cake mix from the store is used for the cake itself, and you’ll make buttercream out of:
- Butter
- Powdered sugar
- Cocoa powder
- Milk
- Salt
- Vanilla extract
Your glaze is made out of a simple mixture of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract. Add red frosting to the skull and put a knife through it to complete the look.
10. Killer Mini Bundts
You’ll need mini bundt cake pans and a hand mixer for this recipe, which calls for:
- Beating the butter and sugar together until it’s smooth
- Adding eggs, dry ingredients and buttermilk to the batter, mixing until smooth
- Spraying your bundy cake pans with baking spray
- Pouring in your batter
- Baking
Make a red glaze with food coloring, vanilla, milk and powdered sugar.
11. Blood and Guts Cake
You can make this delectable cake in less than an hour. It’s gory but delicious and is made from either:
- Frozen cherry pies
- Store-bought cherry pies
You can also make your own pie if you like, but it will add to the cook time. A stand mixer is necessary, along with cherry pie filling for the blood and canned frosting. It’s a fairly easy recipe, following the cake mix box instructions and then assembling, frosting and topping the cake with extra cherry pie filling.
12. Brain Pinata Cake
Grab your food processor because it’s going to get a lot of use with this recipe. Preheat your oven to 160C and grease a small Pyrex bowl. Line the bottom of the bowl and then smooth the butter and sugar in your food processor.
Scrape the sides and then add eggs, one at a time, and process. Slowly add your flour and almond meal, mixing well before adding the vanilla.
Scrape the sides again to be sure that you get all of the food bits on the side into the mixture and then divide the batter into two pudding dishes. Bake and let sit while you make the icing out of butter, confectioner’s sugar, milk, red food coloring and red jelly.
13. Poison Apple Cake
Scary Halloween cakes are hard to find until you see this poison apple option that looks too good to pass up. You’ll buy two white cake mixes for the cake layers and follow the instructions on the box to make them.
You’ll need three 8” cake pans and a cardboard cake circle for this recipe. If you want to take this idea to the next level, the author recommends a cake turntable.
Black cocoa cream cheese buttercream will create the black frosted layer of the cake, but the real fun is making the green cake drip. Your cake drip is made from:
- White candy melts
- Heavy whipping cream
- Lime green food gel
- Large Granny Smith apple
14. Bleeding Cake
If you like raspberry coulis, you’ll appreciate this cake. It’s a bit more complex than other options on the list because you’ll make everything from scratch, including:
- Lemon white cake: Which is made with cake flour, baking powder, salt, egg whites, milk, lemon juice, zest of cake, sugar, vegetable oil, softened butter and vanilla extract.
- Vanilla buttercream: Made from butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, heavy cream and salt.
You’ll make the raspberry coulis a day ahead and will need both a spatula and a strainer for the pulp. For the rest of the recipe, it’s pretty straightforward. You’ll make your cake and buttercream and assemble.
Related: These 17+ Halloween Desserts Are Scary, Easy & Totally Delicious
15. Chocolate Spider Cake
Spiders are always spooky and a part of Halloween festivities, and you can make a delish Oreo cake that looks just like a spider but tastes so good. For the spider’s eyes, you’ll use cinnamon candies.
Black pipe cleaners are used for the spider legs, but keep in mind that they’re not edible.
For the cake itself, you’ll buy boxed cake batter and use two 8” or 9” cake pans. While the cakes are baking, crush a bag of Oreos in a Ziploc bag and set aside while you make the frosting.
For your frosting, you’ll beat the following ingredients together:
- Butter
- Cocoa powder
- Powdered sugar
- Vanilla
- Whipping cream
Whip the ingredients together. Thicken the mixture with more powdered sugar or thin it with whipping cream as necessary. Frost your cake, add the Oreos. You’ll put one cake on top of another and can adorn it any way you wish. Some variations have gummy worms or other candy bugs on top of the Oreo crumbles to add something a little different to the cake.
