9 Halloween Cake Pops In Different Categories + 3 Tips
Diana Barkley
(Senior Editor)
Cake pops were first launched into the stratosphere of baked treats in 2008 by a blogger called Angie Dudley. Since then, bakers everywhere have created scrumptious bite size ‘cakes’ on lollipop sticks for just about any occasion you can imagine. Read on to find the best halloween cake pop ideas.
But how do you make the best cake pops for Halloween? In this article we’ll explore some of the top designs, from fun to scary.
We’ll cover the most delicious Halloween cake pop flavors, and even let you in on a simple recipe to make sure they turn out perfect every time. And if Halloween cake pops aren’t your thing after all, we’ll also tell you all about the best alternatives.
Best Halloween Cake Pops
Best Halloween Cake Pops
The best Halloween cake pop designs — or all cake pop designs for that matter — are sometimes the simplest. Our best Halloween cake pops are easy to make yet effective. Nobody will know just how easily and quickly you turned these out.
Spider Halloween Cake Pops
Spider Halloween Cake Pops
Spider cake pops are so cute and easy to make. All you need is a chocolate cake pop batter of your choosing to start with.
Next, use dark brown candy melts or bittersweet chocolate to coat each pop, but set them down upside-down, or with the lollipop sticks sticking out of the top of each one.
Use dark brown candy laces or pretzel sticks to quickly attach some legs, and decorate with candy eyes. These are a fun project to make with kids, too, though adding the ‘legs’ can be a sticky process.
Pumpkin Halloween Cake Pops
Pumpkin Halloween Cake Pops
We think these are ideal when made with a pumpkin spice-flavored cake pop dough.
To make this, we recommend adding pumpkin spice and some pureed pumpkin to your favorite vanilla sponge cake recipe, or just using your favorite pumpkin spice cake and vanilla buttercream.
Coat each finished cake pop ball with orange candy melt mixture and set either on top of lollipop sticks or upside-down, as with the spiders above.
Decorate each little pumpkin with spooky faces using black icing. If you like, top off each pumpkin with green icing ‘leaves.’
Cute Ghost Cake Pops
Cute Ghost Cake Pops
Ghost cake pops are another clever idea that’s super quick and easy to make.
All you need is your favorite cake pop batter — vanilla works well as it’s very light and won’t shine through, though we’re also partial to red velvet for extra blood red spookiness.
Coat each finished pop with white candy melts and set atop white lollipop sticks. Next, draw on simple ghostly faces using black icing.
Alternatively, you can cover each finished cake pop with a ‘sheet’ of thin white fondant. This will give your ghosts a more traditional ‘ghost’ look, though it is a little more labor intensive.
Funny Monster Cake Pops
Funny Monster Cake Pops
These are great for just getting silly with. Start with any cake pop flavor of your choice, then coat in various hues of candy melts. We’ve seen blue, green, orange, red, pink, purple, and yellow monsters.
Every color works, making these ideal if you’re wanting to have a specific color scheme for your Hallowween party. Add little faces to each pop using candy eyes and icing.
Finally, you can top each cake pop monster ‘head’ with candy hair or horns.
Easy One-Eyed Halloween Cake Pops
Easy One-Eyed Halloween Cake Pops
If you’re looking for especially easy cake pops for Halloween, these will be your go-to. All you need is your favorite cake pop recipe (ours below might just do the trick) and a nice, spooky shade of candy melts.
We’ve seen these done in pale green, which looked very effective.
Coat your finished pops with the candy melt mixture, but make sure it looks a little bit messy and swirly rather than smooth. Finish with a single candy eye in the middle of each little ‘monster’ pop, and you’re done. It’s that easy.
Scary Ideas for Halloween Cake Pops
Scary Ideas for Halloween Cake Pops
Want to take your Halloween cake pops up a notch and make them scarier? Then these ideas will be just the thing for you. From Harry Potter-esque spooky pops to very simple yet super terrifying bloody red cake pops — we’ve got you covered.
Creepy Cauldron Cake Pops
Creepy Cauldron Cake Pops
These are possibly the most elaborate in our line up, but they can look really spooky and effective. Our favorite version of these utilized dark brown candy melts for the cauldron coating.
Top tip: set your cake pops upside down so you get a nice flat ‘cauldron’ top once they’ve cooled and hardened.
When you set them the right side up (with the lollipop sticks firmly placed in some styrofoam or an upside down box), you can add the cauldron contents to the tops.
Green candy melt mixture and sprinkles work really well, but you can get as creative as you like with them. Some people also like to draw flames on the underside of each little cauldron using orange and yellow icing, which can look fun.
Spooky Eyeball Cake Pops
Spooky Eyeball Cake Pops
Eyeball cake pops are possibly the ultimate in Halloween scariness/grossness. They can look so disturbing and fun, all at the same time.
The best ones are made using a fairly light sponge mix (vanilla or coconut, for example), followed by white candy melt coating.
Don’t use white chocolate for this, or your eyes will look jaundiced. Carefully add pupils using colorful and black icing, as well as a dot of white to make them as realistic as possible.
Finally, add red ‘veins’ using an edible food coloring pen. It’ll allow you to make thinner lines, which is much spookier than thick lines of squiggly red icing.
Skeleton Halloween Cake Pops
Skeleton Halloween Cake Pops
Skeleton halloween ‘pops are as spooky as you make them, really.
You can give them a Nightmare Before Christmas vibe, a sugar skull style with colorful icing, craft some cartoon-y looking skulls, or just make them as realistic as you can manage.
We like a light colored cake pop mix followed by white candy melt coating. Next, decorate using icing and/or edible food coloring pens.
Don’t like skeletons but love the idea of a white cake pop for Halloween? Go a little messier with your candy melts and add candy eyes for little mummies.
Bloody Red Cake Pops
Bloody Red Cake Pops
There likely isn’t an easier scary cake pop you can make for Halloween than this one. You’ll want to start with a red velvet cake center, then coat each ball in either white or red candy melts.
If opting for white, red ‘bloody’ swirls over the top work well once your initial designs are set. Finally, you may wish to add blood red sprinkles and/or small candy knives. Great for a murder mystery party, too.
Delicious and Perfect Halloween Cake Pop Flavors
Delicious and Perfect Halloween Cake Pop Flavors
As with any other occasion, most cake pop flavors work well so long as they’re tasty. With that said, a lot of our design ideas above work best with light-colored cake sponges that don’t shimmer through a white candy melt coating.
Alternatively, red velvet cake mix is great for that kind of blood-red effect that makes for an excellent surprise once someone bites into your Halloween cake pops.
How to Make Halloween Cake Pops At Home: A Simple Recipe
How to Make Halloween Cake Pops At Home: A Simple Recipe
Cake pops aren’t that tricky to make, but you do need a great recipe to make them delicious. Enter our simple recipe.
You only need a few ingredients for this one, and it’s easily altered to suit your taste. Just replace the vanilla extract with almond or orange extract, or add in some good quality cocoa powder.
You’ll need the following.
For the cake:
- 1 ⅔ cups of all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp of baking powder
- ¼ tsp of baking soda
- ½ cup of salted butter
- 1 cup of granulated sugar (or light brown sugar)
- 1 large egg (at room temperature)
- 2 tsps of vanilla extract
- 1 cup of whole milk
For the frosting:
- 7 tbsps of unsalted butter
- 1 ¾ cups of powdered sugar
- 2-3 tsps of heavy cream
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
For the coating:
- 24 oz of candy melts of your choice
- sprinkles (optional)
Anything else:
- lollipop sticks
- upside-down box or styrofoam block for setting
Recipe Step-By-Step
Recipe Step-By-Step
Here’s how you do it step by step.
1. Preheat your oven to 350 F. Meanwhile, use some butter to grease a 9” springform pan.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl, including the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate larger bowl, vigorously whisk the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.
Add in the vanilla extract and egg, and continue to mix.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Bake in your prepared pan for around 30-35 minutes. A good test to see if your cake is done is to poke a toothpick or clean fork into it. If it comes away clean, it’s ready.
4. Allow your cake to cool to room temperature, and meanwhile whisk the frosting ingredients together in a fresh bowl. Cream the butter a little first, then add in everything else and continue to whisk until thick and creamy.
5. Crumble your cooled cake into the frosting and mix together until there are no large lumps. Scoop out one tablespoon of cake pop at a time and roll it into a ball. Place all of the cake pop balls onto a prepared baking sheet and chill for around 2 hours.
6. Once your cake pop balls are just about set, melt the candy melts per the package instructions. Top tip: coat the tips of the lollipop sticks in the candy melt mixture first then quickly insert them into each cake pop ball.
Once they’ve set a little, coat each cake pop in candy melts and stand them pop-side up in an upside down box or styrofoam.
Coated cake pops take around an hour to fully set, so you can add sprinkles in the meantime and decorate them as you wish. Enjoy.
Tips for Making Halloween Cake Pops
Tips for Making Halloween Cake Pops
If you’re only making a few cake pops for your next Halloween get-together, they’re reasonably quick and easy to whip up.
If, however, you’re planning on making a whole bunch, you’ll want to use our helpful tips below; doubly so if you want them to be extra creative, see point number 2.
Get a Cake Pop Roller
A cake pop roller is a useful tool that’ll allow you to easily make several cake pops at the same time, so each has the same weight, shape, and size.
Like we said above, this probably isn’t something you’ll need if you’re only making a few. However, if you’re looking to hand out homemade cake pops to the neighborhood kids this year, it’s a must-have.
Make Use of the Element of Surprise by Filling Your Cake Pops
Make Use of the Element of Surprise by Filling Your Cake Pops
What’s better than a standard cake pop? A filled cake pop, of course. We love ours filled with gooey homemade caramel.
The most important step here is to make your caramel and then refrigerate or freeze it in (much) smaller ball-shapes. Once you’ve made your regular pop dough, mold it around each chilled caramel ball.
Then, finish your recipe as per usual and coat and decorate cake pops as you normally would.
Experiment with Recipes Including No-Bake Vegan and Gluten Free Options
One of our favorite cake pop recipes is made using almond flour, coconut flour, maple syrup, melted vegan butter, sea salt, and vanilla extract.
What works so nicely for these is that they don’t need to be baked first, and the finished dough actually only requires around 30 minutes in the fridge to set. So whether you’re vegan, on a gluten-free diet, or neither, these may be a fun alternative to experiment with.
Alternatives to Halloween Cake Pops
Alternatives to Halloween Cake Pops
Cake pops not your thing or do you want to offer more than one sweet treat at your Halloween party? There are plenty of other delicious bakes you can whip up in time for Halloween, and they can be just as fun. Here are a few of our favorites.
Halloween Cupcakes
Halloween Cupcakes
If you’re looking for an even easier alternative to cake pops, halloween cupcakes will probably be your go-to. You can set the vibe by starting with cupcake wrappers or liners with a spooky print or Halloween-y color such as black or blood-red.
Next, choose your favorite recipe before decorating them, taking inspiration from our ideas above. Pumpkin cupcakes work well as do skeleton or ghost ones, and even monsters.
But our favorite by far is a ‘bloody’ cupcake with berry sauce drizzled over the finished cupcakes and a candy knife slicing into the tops.
Halloween Cookies
Halloween Cookies
Halloween cookies are another fun go-to, especially if you’re baking with little kids. You can go down two main routes: bake sugar cookies (the same ones you’d make for Christmas) or whip up some plain ol’ chocolate chip cookies.
If you’re making sugar cookies, we recommend you go for lots of spooky colors for your icing — think black bats, white skeletons and ghosts, and orange jack o’ lanterns.
If you’re baking simple chocolate chip cookies, we like added ‘spider legs’ that you draw onto the chips once the cookies have fully cooled and set. Use simple dark brown icing to paint the legs, and finish some of the ‘spiders’ with candy eyes.
Halloween Brownies
Hands-down our favorite Halloween brownies are gooey, scrumptious chocolate ones with added white vanilla-flavored frosting on top. What is the white frosting for, you ask?
If you carefully pipe it in ‘ribbons’ across each individual brownie, they’ll look like cute little rectangular mummies. Finish them with some googly-looking candy eyes, and you’re set for a super simple Halloween treat.
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