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.
½cup(1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup(7 ounces) granulated sugar
3 largeeggs, room temperature
2teaspoonsvanilla extract
⅔cup(5.33 ounces) milk (See Tip 1)
8ouncessour cream (See Tip 2)
15.25ouncebox white cake mix, sifted (See Tip 3)
1 ½cupscake flour, sifted (See Tip 4)
orange, purple, and green gel food coloring (See Tip 5)
Cream Cheese Frosting
4ouncescream cheese, room temperature (See Tip 6)
3Tablespoonsheavy cream
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1 ½cups(6 ounces) confectioners' sugar
Halloween sprinkles
4candy 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.
Tips/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.