How to Make a Halloween Jack-O-Lantern Cake

1 of 12 in Series: The Essentials of Halloween Parties

Let this festive jack-o-lantern cake be the center piece of your Halloween party. A fluted bundt pan creates a realistic look, and the Brown Sugar Cake fits the tenor of October . . . but is delicious year-round.

Assembling and Decorating the Jack-O-Lantern Cake

Tools: Two 10-fluted bundt pans, #11 icing tip

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: 50 minutes plus 30 minutes for cooling

Decoration time: 35 minutes plus 1 hour for refrigeration

Yield: 24 servings

2 batches Brown Sugar Cake batter

2 batches buttercream frosting

Black food coloring gel

Leaf green food coloring gel

Sunset orange food coloring gel

Banana, unpeeled

Delight your little tricksters with this Halloween jack-o-lantern cake.

1. Divide and tint the buttercream frosting as follows: 1 cup black, 1⁄2 cup leaf green, and the remainder orange.

2. Turn one cake upside down, and frost it with orange buttercream. Put the other cake on top of it, right side up, and frost the entire cake orange. With the last coat of frosting, frost the cake with a downward motion to create the striations found on a real pumpkin.

3. Outfit a pastry bag with a coupler, a #10 tip, and black frosting. On the side of the pumpkin, pipe two triangles for the eyes, one triangle for the nose, and a series of smaller triangles for the mouth.

4. Cut the banana in half, and cover it with green frosting. Insert it stem side up into the hole at the top of the pumpkin.