Menu · BakingNo. 1276 · The 2026 edition
Halloween cupcakes and cakes for every level of ambition.
Witch hats, ghosts and mummies on cupcakes, then a bat cake, a graveyard and a skull with a strawberry jello brain. Twenty-five bakes from other creators, each linked to its full recipe.
Halloween cupcakes do a lot with very little: a small round cake, a swirl of frosting, and suddenly it’s a ghost, a mummy or a witch hat. We cover those, plus whole cakes for anyone who wants a centerpiece, from a bat to a graveyard to one very committed skull. The list runs best first.
Whether you have a spare evening or a spare weekend, the blurbs say which bakes are quick and which need planning. Ghost cupcakes and piped witch hats come together quickly, the multi-design sets let you vary a whole tray, and the sculpted and heavily layered cakes are weekend-project territory, with the skull in a class of its own. Every entry links to the creator’s full recipe, and the credit stays with them.
Twenty-five cupcakes and cakes, best first
- Witch Hat Halloween Cupcakes — The full witch treatment: pumpkin spice cupcakes with a green buttercream face, candy eyes and a black cone hat coated in sanding sugar and banded in purple fondant with a gold buckle. Chocolate cookies and extra assembly make it the most involved cupcake here. The guide
- Halloween Bat Cake — Pumpkin spice cake layers, with pumpkin buttercream between them, wear a gradient coat of Italian meringue buttercream and a flock of black bats made from melted candy melts. It’s a weekend showpiece for a party dessert table. The guide
- Vegan Halloween cookies & cream fault line cake — This vegan cake holds nothing back: four chocolate layers, black frosting and Halloween sandwich cookies in the mix, plus a fault line trimmed with halved cookies and black crystal sprinkles. One of the longer builds, so set aside a weekend afternoon. The guide
- Chocolate Skull Cake with Strawberry Jello Brain — A grave undertaking: a skull-pan chocolate cake, carved and coated in ganache, then capped in white chocolate and popping candy, which hot red velvet crème anglaise dissolves to expose a strawberry jello brain. A full-weekend project, with bourbon in the syrup. The guide
- Easy Halloween Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting (12 ways) — Twelve designs in tinted buttercream, from pumpkins and ghosts to Frankenstein, a brain and spiders, with the coloring tips and Wilton piping techniques spelled out. Pitched as simple, so it’s a friendly start for new decorators. The guide
- Pumpkin Chocolate Halloween Cake — Spiced pumpkin layers alternate with chocolate ones under vanilla buttercream, with a shiny bittersweet chocolate drip and a candy topping of marshmallow ghosts, gummy pops and candy corn. A good answer for a table split between pumpkin and chocolate fans. The guide
- Spooky Graveyard Layer Cake — Think graveyard, in layers: black and red cake under gray buttercream, with tombstones, ghosts and eyeballs, and a choice of gingerbread coffin or tree for the centerpiece. All that decorating makes it a weekend project. The guide
- Halloween Cupcakes — Chocolate cupcakes with a coffee boost, finished in buttercream and turned into a mummy, spider, pumpkin, monster or ghost with basic piping and a few candies. The designs are mix-and-match, and it’s on the quicker side. The guide
- Ghost Cake — Three cake layers in black cocoa, orange and green are stacked with black buttercream, then decorated with marshmallow spiderwebs and piped white ghosts. It serves a crowd, so it’s a good centerpiece when the guest list is long. The guide
- Pumpkin Bundt Cake — Two bundt cakes joined with cream cheese frosting get carved into a pumpkin, then covered in orange buttercream with sculpted ridges and a homemade stem. More sculpting than baking, and about as friendly as a Halloween centerpiece gets. The guide
- Halloween Cake Pops — Four characters, two dozen pops: vanilla cake and buttercream, from scratch, shaped into spiders, mummies, pumpkins and Frankensteins. Colored candy coating, licorice legs, candy eyes and a touch of icing finish them off, and with no slicing needed they’re easy to hand around. The guide
- Dirt Cake — Gummy worms hide inside this chocolate cake, layered with Oreo crumb frosting and topped with a green frosting lawn and more crumbs so it looks freshly dug. The creepy-crawly surprise is aimed squarely at kids. The guide
- Leftover Halloween Candy Chocolate Cake Recipe — Leftover Halloween candy finds a home here: a from-scratch chocolate cake deepened with coffee, stacked with chocolate buttercream and crowned with Snickers, 3 Musketeers and Mars bars plus M&M’s. A drizzle of chocolate sauce finishes it, and the Halloween part is the candy itself. The guide
- Bloody Vampire Layer Cake — Rich vanilla cake and buttercream are stacked, then finished with glitter gel and dripping blood-red icing. The red does all the vampire work, so pick it for a vampire theme or any table that wants one bold idea. The guide
- Pumpkin Shaped Mini Bundt Cakes — Mini bundt pans turn a spiced batter of chocolate and pumpkin into individual pumpkins, joined with cream cheese frosting and topped with a shiny orange drip, a pretzel stem and a green frosting vine. Cute, not creepy, and no slicing required. The guide
- Halloween Layer Cake — Orange and chocolate tiers alternate in this layer cake, which is wrapped in orange-tinted cream cheese frosting and topped with a dark ganache drip, candy corn and sprinkles. A classic Halloween palette, and a shorter project than most of the layer cakes here. The guide
- Halloween Explosion Cake Recipe — Cut into these ombre green and purple layers and a stash of M&M’s and sprinkles tumbles out. The reveal is the point, and it’s a quicker layer cake than most. The guide
- Ghost Cupcakes — Marshmallow ghosts, draped in thin white icing and given a black icing mouth and candy eyes, top chocolate cupcakes iced with fluffy chocolate buttercream. It’s the quickest bake on the list, which makes it the one for a last-minute party. The guide
- Witch Hat Cupcakes — Piped, not assembled: the black witch hat, creases and peak included, sits on a green frosting swirl over a chocolate cupcake, with green sprinkles for good measure. It comes together far faster than the fondant-banded hats. The guide
- Halloween Cupcakes with Oreo Mummies — Oreos turn up three times: one tucked into the bottom of each cupcake, more crushed into dirt on the cream cheese frosting, and one turned into a mummy with homemade white fondant bandages and tiny eyes. A good pick for cookies-and-cream fans. The guide
- Hocus Pocus Cupcakes — Peanut butter hides inside these chocolate cupcakes, topped with swirls of purple, orange and yellow buttercream, each in its own piping style, and sparkling with edible glitter. Witchy and bright, with a filling worth a heads-up for peanut-allergic guests. The guide
- Spooky Black Velvet Halloween Cake — Black cocoa does the heavy lifting: three 6-inch layers made with bloomed black cocoa and buttermilk, stacked and covered in black cocoa buttercream. Small pans and under an hour of prep make it one of the easier full-size cakes here, and the spooky decorating is up to you. The guide
- Black Velvet Cupcakes — Deep cocoa batter dyed black bakes into cupcakes with a raspberry jam center and cream cheese frosting, plus a thinned-jam drizzle that adds a streak of red. Gothic rather than cute, and good for any moody party. The guide
- Halloween Cake Recipe — Boxed mixes get the job done here: two of them make marbled chocolate-and-orange layers under chocolate buttercream, with piped chocolate tombstones, fences and a tree rising from Oreo dirt. Build it the day before and chill it, which lightens party day. The guide
- Caramel Swirl Silly Pumpkin Cupcakes — Swirls of pumpkin spice caramel dip run through the batter before baking, and orange buttercream, candy eyeballs and gel icing add the silly faces. Billed as easy, and more goofy than ghoulish. The guide
Every Halloween cupcake is just a plain cupcake in costume.
For a party table, pair one weekend cake with a quick tray of cupcakes so the big project isn’t carrying everything. Anything you can make ahead, like the chilled boxed-mix graveyard cake, takes the pressure off party day. When you run out of these, the rest of the baking category has plenty more Halloween recipes.