Halloween Chocolate Cake

This Halloween chocolate cake is moist, rich, and super delicious. I love Halloween baking, and this poke cake was a lot of fun. It was topped with a layer of pumpkin spice caramel and homemade powdered sugar chocolate frosting. 

 

This recipe and post were created for #HalloweenTreatsWeek! Sponsor companies sent me samples, but as always, opinions are 100% mine.

Ingredients

• Flour
• Dixie Crystals Sugar
• Baking soda
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Unsweetened cocoa
• Vegetable oil
• Eggs
• Adams Best Vanilla Extract
• Buttermilk
• Water
• Litehouse Pumpkin Spice Caramel
• Butter
• Dixie Crystals Powdered Sugar
• Half and half or heavy cream
• Wilton Halloween Sprinkles
• Treat Street Marshmallow Skull Lollipops
• Large and medium bowls
• Spatula
• Hand mixer
• 13″ x 9″ cake pan
• Non-stick spray
• Oven

Full recipe and printable instructions at the bottom of the post

We have a lot of great sponsors for #HalloweenTreatsWeek including Dixie Crystals, Wilton, Litehouse Foods, Adams Extract, and Treat Street. I really enjoyed the products and loved making the cake with their help. 

Halloween Chocolate Cake

Start by adding the dry ingredients to a large bowl. Add the sugar and flour. Next, add the baking soda, baking powder, and salt to the bowl. 

Now, add the unsweetened cocoa to the bowl and mix the dry ingredients. 

Pour the vegetable oil into the mixture. 

Add the vanilla extract. 

Now, add the eggs to the mixture. 

Pour the buttermilk into the bowl and mix everything. 

If you don’t have any buttermilk, that’s ok. I used one cup of 2 percent milk and added one tablespoon of vinegar to it. I let it sit for a few minutes and then added it to the cake. 

Finally, pour the water into the bowl and mix the ingredients. 

Pour the batter into the cake pan. It will be very runny and thin. Bake the cake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until a cake tester comes out clean.

My cake came out a little wrinkled on top, which is ok, but I couldn’t figure out what I did to cause it. After talking with my friend, she said I needed to tamp out the bubbles before sticking the chocolate cake batter into the oven to bake. 

She also mentioned that using a glass cake pan doesn’t distribute the heat as evenly as a metal cake pan. My cake still turned out fantastic, and I almost prefer glass because I like this large dish. 

So, if you get wrinkles on top, like in the photo below, don’t worry. You’ll cover them with frosting so no one will ever know. 

But believe me, it tasted so moist and fantastic that the wrinkles wouldn’t matter. 

Once the cake cools a little, poke some holes throughout. I used a straw, which wasn’t fun to clean after, but I didn’t have anything else that would work. It did the trick, and that’s what counts. 

Melt the Litehouse Pumpkin Spice Caramel Dip in the microwave for two minutes and spread it over the cake, gently working it back and forth to get it down into the holes. 

Homemade Chocolate Frosting

Add the softened butter to a medium-sized bowl. 

Next, add the powdered sugar and unsweetened cocoa to the bowl. Mix a little. 

Pour the milk into the bowl. I started with two tablespoons, mixed the chocolate frosting, and then added more until I was happy with the spreading consistency.

Spread the chocolate frosting onto the cake. 

Add your candy decor on top. The Halloween sprinkles and ghosts came in a pack from Wilton. 

The marshmallow skull comes from Treat Street, USA.

Dixie Crystals sent powdered sugar that makes the best frosting.