Halloween Surprise Bundt Cake
Brighten your Halloween festivities with this moist Halloween Surprise Bundt Cake. You'd never believe that this amazing cake is made from a store-bought mix. With the Halloween colors of orange, green, and purple swirled into the cake, every piece is a surprise.
Servings: 12 servings
Calories: 501kcal
Ingredients
Halloween Bundt Cake
- ½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup (5.33 ounces) milk (See Tip 1)
- 8 ounces sour cream (See Tip 2)
- 15.25 ounce box white cake mix, sifted (See Tip 3)
- 1 ½ cups cake flour, sifted (See Tip 4)
- orange, purple, and green gel food coloring (See Tip 5)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (See Tip 6)
- 3 Tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (6 ounces) confectioners' sugar
- Halloween sprinkles
- 4 candy pumpkins, cut in half (See Tip 7)
Instructions
Halloween Surprise Bundt Cake
- Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, milk, and sour cream. Beat well.
- Sift in cake mix; beat on low speed until incorporated. Sift in cake flour; beat on low speed until incorporated. Finish folding ingredients with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to ensure that all ingredients are well combined.
- Divide the batter into thirds, roughly 16 ounces each. Color one orange, one green, and one purple to the desired color with gel food coloring. (See Note 7)
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Thoroughly grease a 10- to 12-cup Bundt pan, or spray with nonstick baking spray.
- Spoon a layer of orange, green, purple, orange, green, and purple batter into the bottom of a bundt pan. Carefully swirl with a butter knife. Tap the pan several times on the counter to evenly distribute.
- Repeat the first layer beginning where the purple and green meet on the bottom layer. Swirl with a toothpick. Tap to evenly distribute. Repeat again for the third layer.
- Bake at 350° F for 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven; let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert the cake on a wire rack; cool completely.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Beat cream cheese, cream, and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth. Add confectioners' sugar; beat until smooth.
Finishing the Halloween Surprise Bundt Cake
- Spoon cream cheese frosting around the top of the cake, allowing the frosting to drip down the sides. Sprinkle the top with Halloween sprinkles. Top with half-candy pumpkins.
- Yield: 12 servings.
Notes
- I used whole milk, but you could also use 2% milk.
- I used full-fat sour cream, but you could also use reduced-fat sour cream.
- I used white cake mix because that's what I had. You could also use yellow cake mix. A word of caution here. In the past, cake mixes used to contain 18.25 ounces. Now, they contain 15.25 ounces!
- I used cake flour because it provides a better crumb. However, you could also use all-purpose flour.
- The six colors of Halloween are black, orange, red, white, purple, and green. You could use any three of these colors for this cake. I thought a lot about the color combinations that I wanted to use and decided upon orange, purple, and green. I used 10 to 12 drops of each of the gel food colorings to achieve my desired color.
- I used reduced-fat cream cheese, but you could also use full-fat cream cheese.
- For the candy pumpkins, I used Mellowcreme Pumpkins. The reason that I cut them in half was that they would lie better on the top of the cake.
Nutrition
Calories: 501kcal | Carbohydrates: 73g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 20g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Cholesterol: 93mg | Sodium: 304mg | Potassium: 90mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 51g | Vitamin A: 625IU | Vitamin C: 0.2mg | Calcium: 74mg | Iron: 1mg