Polka Dot Pumpkin Halloween Cake
Polka Dot Pumpkin Halloween Cake
This simple pumpkin cake has a delicious surprise inside– deliciously fudgy polka dots. I’m sharing the do’s and don’ts I learned from my first attempt at making a “surprise inside” cake!
Related Recipes:
Ingredients
- Yellow cake mix
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- ¼-½ cup milk
- orange food coloring (optional)
- baked chocolate cake
- ¼ cup chocolate frosting (store-bought)
- black food coloring (optional)
Directions
1. Make the cake balls (the polka dots).
- DO: use any baked chocolate cake that you want to use. It can be store-bought, it can be homemade, it can be made with a cake mix– whatever! And it doesn’t have to be in any particular shape (it can even be in cupcake form), because you’re just going to crumble it all up anyway.
- DO: use a cake mix if you want to follow my recipe exactly*. If you feel comfortable doing your own thing, that’s fine! I made a cake with a cake mix and used HALF of the baked cake in this recipe. The rest of it is in my freezer for making cake ball truffles at holiday time.
- DON’T: make the cake balls larger than a teaspoon. I tried to hide it some in the pictures (sorry!), but most of my slices just had a black blob in the middle instead of cute little polka dots. That’s because my cake balls were too big, so they were too close together in the cake.
- DON’T: feel like you have to use black food coloring. The polka dots would have most likely been dark enough without it; but I really wanted a definite orange-and-black look with Halloween in mind, so I added a little coloring to punch it up a bit.
2. Make the pumpkin cake batter.
- DO: use any pumpkin cake recipe that you like best. The cake mix version I’m providing you in this post is a recipe that is super quick and easy. But if you’re looking for a more robust pumpkin flavor and texture, I highly recommend this pumpkin cake recipe.
- DON’T: use pumpkin pie filling. Every Fall I have an inbox full of angry emails from bakers who accidentally used pumpkin pie filling instead of pumpkin pureé and ended up with a recipe flop. Be sure you’re buying 100% pure pumpkin!
3. Layer the cake batter with the cake balls.
- DON’T: put the cake balls too close together. Which is a great segue into the next bullet point…
- DO: put a nice, thick layer of cake batter in between the two layers of cake balls. If I had to quantify how much cake batter should go in each layer, the layers would go something like this:
- First Layer: 1/4 of the cake batter
- Second Layer: several black cake balls
- Third Layer: 1/2 of the cake batter
- Fourth Layer: several black cake balls
- Fifth Layer: 1/4 of the cake batter
4. Bake at 350ºF for 45 minutes. Let cool and invert onto serving plate.
Related Recipes:
- Basic Cake Ball Truffle Recipe
- Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Maple Glaze
- Caramel Swirled Pumpkin Snack Cake
Polka Dot Pumpkin Halloween Cake
Yield:
18 slices
Prep Time:
1 hour
Cook Time:
1 hour
Total Time:
2 hours
This simple pumpkin cake has a delicious surprise inside-- deliciously fudgy polka dots. I'm sharing the do's and don'ts I learned from my first attempt at making a "surprise inside" cake!
Ingredients
- Yellow cake mix
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- ½ cup milk
- orange food coloring (optional)*
- baked chocolate cake
- ¼ cup chocolate frosting (store-bought)
- black food coloring (optional)*
Instructions
- Assuming you used a cake mix to make a chocolate cake... divide the baked cake in half. Put one half in a bowl, and set aside the second half for other use.
- Crumble the cake and use a fork to mix it with the chocolate frosting until you have one, cohesive mixture. If the mixture doesn't stick together to form a ball, add more frosting a tablespoon at a time.
- Use a teaspoon to form to scoop the mixture. Roll into balls. Set aside.
- Make the pumpkin cake batter by whisking together the yellow cake mix, pumpkin pureè, and milk.
- Alternate layers of the cake batter with layers of the cake balls in a well greased bundt pan.
- Bake at 350ºF for 45 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes and invert onto serving plate. Slice once completely cool.
Notes
*food coloring is completely optional. I like it to make the Halloween colors really pop.
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