Candy Bucket Cake
- Level: Easy
- Yield: 25 to 30 servings
- Total: 3 hr
- Prep: 2 hr 25 min
- Cook: 35 min
Ingredients
Cooking spray
2 18 .25-ounce boxes spice cake mix
8 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 16 -ounce tubs vanilla frosting
Orange gel food coloring, for tinting
Cornstarch, for dusting
12 ounces orange rolled fondant (available at craft stores)
1/2 cup dark chocolate frosting
2 long black licorice strings
Snack-size candy, for topping
Directions
- Spray one 8-inch-round cake pan and two 6-cup Bundt pans with cooking spray. Beat the cake mixes, eggs, buttermilk and oil with a mixer; divide among the pans. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes for the round cake and 30 to 35 minutes for the Bundts; let cool.
- Tint the vanilla frosting with orange food coloring. Trim the flat sides of the Bundt cakes and the top of the round cake to make level. Turn 1 Bundt cake upside down; spread with frosting. Top with the round cake, more frosting and the other Bundt cake, then frost the whole cake and chill 30 minutes.
- Lightly dust a sheet of wax paper with cornstarch. Roll out the fondant on the paper into a 21-by-8-inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 12 strips, 8 inches long and 1 3/4 inches wide, tapering the ends as shown.
- Attach the fondant strips to the cake, lightly pressing and smoothing them from the base of the cake upward. Refrigerate the cake 30 minutes.
- Draw jack-o'-lantern eyes, a nose and a mouth on paper and cut them out; attach to the cake with toothpicks. Score around the cutouts with a paring knife, then remove the toothpicks and paper.
- Trace the scored lines with the knife, cutting through the fondant and slightly into the cake. Pry out the pieces with the tip of the knife.
- Cut a 1-inch-deep circle out of the top of the cake. Put the dark chocolate frosting in a resealable plastic bag; snip the corner and pipe the frosting into the cutouts.
- Twist the 2 strings of licorice together and insert into the top of the cake to make a handle. Fill the top of the cake with snack-size candy.