This Candy Corn Cake is almost too cute to eat! A perfectly moist, layered chocolate cake is decorated with a candy corn theme and colorful cream cheese frosting for a dessert worthy of special occasions! The slices are just gorgeous!
Love Halloween? Check out my Halloween Sprinkle Cookies, Halloween Candy Bark and Halloween Graveyard Dirt Cups!
This adorable Candy Corn Cake starts with a perfect chocolate cake, then gets filled with cream cheese frosting and is decorated in a fun candy corn theme.
This cake is just so cute, fun and delicious… perfect for Halloween!
If you’re a fan of candy corn… this cake is for you!
And I’ll let you in on a little secret… even if you don’t care for candy corn, this cake is still perfect, because it only LOOKS like candy corn… it TASTES like perfect chocolate cake.
This recipe was created in partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market.
This recipe started with a trip to Sprouts Farmers Market.
I love visiting Sprouts as the seasons change because they always have a great selection of fun and delicious seasonal treats!
I created this Candy Corn Cake to celebrate of one of the most iconic fall candies around… candy corn!
Those sweet layers of yellow, orange and white are an unmistakable announcement that fall is on its way!
Once I grabbed a nice big container of candy corn, I stocked up on all of my other favorite Sprouts brand baking supplies… including flour, sugar, baking powder and vanilla.
How to make a fun Candy Corn Cake
This recipe starts with my favorite Chocolate Cake Recipe. Feel free to use my Perfect Vanilla Cake Recipe if you would prefer vanilla cake.
Then it’s filled and topped with delicious Cream Cheese Frosting. If you don’t love cream cheese, feel free to use my American Buttercream Recipe.
Feel free to break up the work of this recipe a bit by baking the cake layers (allow to cool) and them wrap them well in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for up to 3 days before preparing the frosting and assembling the cake.
For decorating success with this cake I’d recommend…
- (Two) Large Reusable Piping Bags
- (Two) Large Round Piping Tips
- (One) Open Star Piping Tip (for the frosting swirls on top of the cake)
- Large Couplers (for easily changing tips)
- Large Offset Spatula (for smoothing the icing on the side of the cake)
- Cake Turntable
A triple layer chocolate cake is filled with delicious cream cheese frosting and decorated in a fun candy corn theme!
Candy Corn Cake Recipe
Candy Corn Cake
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder best quality available
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup whole milk or use skim milk and add a little cream
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup very hot water or hot coffee
For the frosting
- 1 1/4 cups unsalted butter 2 and 1/2 stick, or 20 tablespoons – room temperature
- 8 oz cream cheese 1 block
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2-3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- yellow and orange food coloring see recipe notes
Chocolate glaze
- 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Instructions
Bake the cake
- Heat oven to 350*F.
- Prepare cake pans by rubbing the sides of the pans with a little oil or butter and dusting with flour. Line bottoms of pans with parchment paper. For the cake shown, I baked in three 7″ pans.
- In a large mixing bowl (the bowl of an electric mixer), stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
- Stir in hot water or coffee (the batter will be thin, don’t worry, this is right).
- Divide batter evenly between prepared pans.
- Bake until the top of the cake is smooth and has a slight dome and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. I baked the cake shown in three 7″ pans and baked them about 30 minutes. You will need to adjust the bake time based on the pans you choose.
- Cool completely before frosting. I like to cool the cakes at room temperature a bit, then wrap in plastic wrap and freeze until cold and firm (30 minutes or up to a couple days).
Prepare the frosting
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter (on medium speed) until completely smooth (30 seconds to a minute).
- Add cream cheese, and then beat until smooth.
- One cup at time, add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating after each addition.
- Add vanilla, and blend to combine.
- Add about 2 tablespoon of cream, and continue beating.
- Add the remaining 3 cups powdered sugar, one at a time.
- Add an additional 1 tablespoons cream until desired consistency is reached.
- Add salt.
- Continue to beat another minute or so. The frosting should now be smooth and fluffy.
- Scoop about 1 cup of frosting into a bowl and set aside. This will be the white frosting for the top portion of the cake.
- Into another bowl, scoop about 2 1/2 cups of frosting and set aside. This will be colored orange later.
- Remaining in the bowl should be about 1+ cup of frosting. Color this frosting yellow. Add this yellow frosting to a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip.
- Now, put the frosting that was reserved to turn orange back into the mixing bowl (no need to clean out) and color it orange. Add the orange frosting to a large piping bag fitted with a large round tip.
Assemble the cake
- Add the first layer of cake to a cake board (or cake stand). Add a layer of yellow icing ( using about half of what has been colored yellow).
- Add another layer of cake, and then a layer of orange frosting.
- Add the third cake layer.
- Use the reaming yellow icing to begin frosting the base of the cake. This is done the most easily by piping a line of icing directly onto the cake. Spread gently. The icing does not need to be perfect at this stage.
- Next, add orange frosting to the outside of the cake (again, this is easiest with a piping bag), and then spread as appropriate (but does not need to be perfect).
- Now, add white frosting (spread or pipe) onto the top of the cake, and down the side just a bit (to meet the orange).
- Once the cake is fully covered in frosting, move entire cake to the fridge or freezer to help the icing firm up. After 15 minutes, remove from freezer and use a large offset spatula (warmed in hot water and then quickly dried) to smooth the icing as desired.
- Prepare chocolate drip by heating the chocolate chips and heavy cream in a small bowl in the microwave. Heat until warm, and then set on the counter for a minute to allow the chips to melt. Stir until smooth. Add chocolate to a small piping bag and then add drips of chocolate along the edge of the cake. Move cake to the fridge to allow chocolate to cool.
- Complete the decorating by using the remaining orange frosting (and a large open star tip, such as Wilton 1M) to add swirls of frosting to the top, then garnish with candy corn.
- Chill cake until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Happy Halloween baking!
Disclosure – I created this recipe in partnership with Sprouts Farmers Market. Partnering with brands I love allows me to provide you with high quality content at no cost to you. I only work with brands I use and love. All images, text and opinions are my own.
Cute cake . It looks delicious .. and a great article with details . Thank you for sharing 🙂
We love candy corns! Those are some fabulous presentation skills! Such a beautiful candy corn cake. It will be perfect for our Halloween party. Thanks for the idea.
So cute! And, boy, does it look tasty! 🙂 <3