A charmingly spooky, snowy graveyard cake is the perfect treat for Halloween! The cake is pumpkin flavored and super moist with olive oil. We topped it with a whipped maple buttercream frosting and then decorated the cake with adorable California Strawberry ghosts, pumpkins and cookie tombstones! Recipe by Sugar and Charm.
Graveyard Pumpkin Sheet Cake
Yield: 1 8x8 Cake
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- Mixing bowls, whisk, measuring cups, 8x8 square baking dish, parchment paper, piping bag, electric mixer.
Ingredients
Strawberry Ghost
- 5 California Strawberries
- 1 cup white candy melts or white chocolate melted.
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips melted
Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Maple Buttercream Frosting
- 2 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temp.
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tbsp heavy cream
- 5 tbsp maple syrup
Cake Toppings
- Cookies for Tombstones
- Candy Pumpkins
- Fresh mint or edible flowers from the garden.
- Powdered sugar for snow dusting.
Instructions
Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and brown eggs for about 2 minutes. You want the mixture to be light and pale in color.
- Add in the pumpkin puree, olive oil, vanilla extract, spices and salt and whisk until combined.
- Add the flour, baking soda and powder and fold all of the ingredients together.
- Prepare an 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper and a lot of butter.
- Pour the batter in the dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.
- Let the cake cook before removing from the pan and frosting.
Maple Buttercream Frosting
- In an electric mixer, beat the room temperature butter and sugar on high.
- Add in the milk, maple syrup and vanilla and continue to whip on hight until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- If the frosting curdles, add in another 1/4 confectioners sugar and keep whipping.
California Strawberry Ghosts
- While the cake is baking and cooling, make the little ghosts.
- Melt a bowl of white chocolate chips or white candy melts.
- Dip the strawberries into the melted chocolate and place on parchment paper to dry.
- Then, melt milk chocolate chips and in a piping bah (or plastic bag) cut a super small hole in the tip to create eyes and a mouth of the dipped strawberries.
Assembling the Cake
- Add the whipped frosting over the cooled cake.
- Add cashed chocolate cookies over the top (optional)
- Place the ghosts and decorations on the top and then sift powdered sugar over the cake.
