It’s October, which means Halloween planning is in full swing. Everywhere I go, I see Halloween decorations, Halloween costumes and (most importantly) Halloween candy. Every October 31st, our neighbors host a neighborhood Halloween party. The turnout is amazing. I love seeing all of the kids dressed up and excited for the evening. While the kids are out trick-or-treating, the parents hang around and enjoy more “adult” foods and beverages. Since every family is responsible for bringing one dish, I decided to bring this festive Halloween Swirl Cake. Not only would the kids enjoy it, but so would their parents. Here’s how I made it.
Heat the oven to 325°F and, while it’s heating, grease and flour a Bundt® pan and mix up the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Next, cream softened butter and sugar with almond extract.
Add 4 eggs, one at a time, and beat until the mixture is creamy and light.
Start by adding about 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat until combined…
…then add about 1/3 of the buttermilk and beat until combined.
Continue this process until you’ve used all of the flour mixture and buttermilk. Grab 3 small bowls and place 3/4 cup of the batter into each bowl.
Tint each bowl with purple, green and orange food coloring. It works best if you use gel food color (you can find it at craft stores) because you’ll get a much more vibrant color. You can use regular food coloring, but the colors of your cake won’t be as intense.
Spread 1 cup of white batter in the bottom of your prepared Bundt® pan.
Now for the fun part – drop all different colors of the batter randomly in the Bundt® pan, using 1/4 cup of batter at a time.
Smooth the top of the batter down.
Now, using a table knife, gently swirl the batter (don’t over-swirl, though, or else it will just all combine and no swirl will show up).
Bake for 55-65 minutes and when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, it’s ready.
Let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then invert the cake onto a plate or cooling rack and let it cool completely.
Once the cake is cooled, mix the glaze ingredients together and divide evenly between three small bowls. We’ll do the same thing we did with the cake batter – tint each bowl purple, green and orange.
Time to decorate! I found it works best if you place the glaze into a resealable plastic food bag and snip the tip off to drizzle the glaze.
There’s no need to be perfect here – it’s supposed to be a spooky explosion of color!
I decorated the cake with some creepy, crawly plastic spiders – but you could use whatever you want to add to the “spooky” factor.
This won’t last long if you bring it to a party, so make sure to make one to have at home too!