Nonpareil Halloween Sprinkle Bat Cake
Steps involved
Make cake layers
Make buttercream (no color)
Split and color buttercream
Pipe bats
Assemble and ice cake
Chill cake
Add sprinkles and swirly dollops
READ BEFORE CONTINUING: The following recipes are scaled to make the cake pictured above -- a 4 layer cake made with 6-inch round cake layers. If you wish to make a smaller cake, please scale down these recipes.
recipes used
1 - 1.5 batches Italian meringue buttercream
I made this buttercream vanilla flavored by adding 1 tablespoon of vanilla to my 1.5x batch (can add less or more to taste)
Colors used
To get these colors, I used Wilton's Color Right Food Coloring System.*
For the icing:
The colors may differ depending on how much icing you're coloring and the starting color of your buttercream (certain butter brands are more white or yellow which can make the buttercream whiter or more yellow). These are the amounts I used and should get you close.
Purple Icing:
Blue: 9 drops
Red: 3 drops
Pink: 18 drops
Orange Icing:
Orange: 20 drops
Red: 2 drops
Black Icing: *for in depth instructions on how to get deep black icing, click here.
Supplies/tools
To find the tools I use for almost every cake I make and decorate (including pans, cake boards, icing smoothers, etc.), click here.
The supplies/tools below are specifically for decorating this cake, which I used in addition to the ones in the link above.*
*Some of these links may be affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I earn a small amount from some purchases, however, this does not affect my recommendations.
Decorating the cake
After the cake has been assembled and iced:
Place the iced cake in the fridge until the icing is firm to the touch.
Melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave. When melted, pour the chocolate into a piping bag and cut a small hole at the tip.
If you would like to use an image to trace, insted of piping the bats free-hand, place an image underneath a piece of parchment paper or sheet of acetate (I used the image below). Using the piping bag full of chocolate, trace the bats with chocolate. Set to the side to let them set.
Cut out some bat shapes out of parchment paper.
Place the parchment paper bats and stick them to the cold cake. *If they're not sticking properly, you can brush some vegatable shortening on the back of the bats to help them adhere to the cake.
Once you've placed the parchment bats on the cake, apply your sprinkles to the cake by grabbing a handful of sprinkles and pressing them onto the cold cake. Continue doing so until the entire side of the cake is covered in sprinkles.
Once you're cake is covered in sprinkles, carefully lift the corer of each parchment bat with a toothpick and peel the parchment bats off of the cake to reveal the bat silhouettes.
Pipe swirly dollops of icing on top of the cake. You can find my tutorial on swirly dollops here. If you'd like to pipe multiple colors at once like I've done for this cake, check out my tutorial on how to pipe multiple colors here.
Peel the chocolate bats off of the parchment paper or acetate sheet and stick them to the swirly dollops on the top of the cake.
Slice and enjoy :)
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